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On je osoba svijetlog tena i plavih očiju.

On je osoba svijetlog tena i plavih očiju.
He is a person of fair complexion and blue eyes.
From Lesson 340:Descriptive genitive (genitiv svojstva)·Croatian

Questions & Answers about On je osoba svijetlog tena i plavih očiju.

Why are svijetlog tena and plavih očiju in the genitive case here?
They are used as a Genitive of quality. In Croatian, you can describe a noun's characteristics by following it with an adjective and a noun in the genitive case. It structurally translates to 'a person of fair complexion and of blue eyes'.
Could I use the instrumental case with the preposition s (with) instead?
Yes, you can! Saying On je osoba sa svijetlim tenom i plavim očima is completely natural and means the exact same thing. The genitive of quality often sounds a bit more literary or descriptive, but both constructions are widely used in everyday speech.
The dictionary form for fair or light is svijetao. How does it become svijetlog?
The adjective svijetao undergoes two common sound changes when taking an ending. First, it drops its fleeting 'a'. Second, its final 'o' reverts to its original 'l' when followed by a vowel. This makes the stem svijetl-, to which we add the standard masculine genitive ending -og to get svijetlog.
Why is the genitive plural of oči (eyes) očiju instead of taking a standard ending?
Body parts that come in pairs often have irregular plural declensions because they retain traces of an old 'dual' grammatical number. The genitive plural of oči is highly irregular and is always očiju. You will see the exact same pattern with the word for ears, where uši becomes ušiju.

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