Ana's Updated Sprites

[Anacybele]

Er, I did shade it... xP You mean the top part of her crown, right?

[Amelia]

Well yeah but third shade of FE7 skin isn't really that good. It's bright.

Kinda makes your sprite not really smooth if you put it right at the border color.

[Anacybele]

Skin? I thought I used the colors of most armor lining. I wanted it to be gold...ish like the lining on a lot of armor and such. Guess it wasn't a good idea. >_<

Edited June 26, 2013 by Anacybele

[Canadian Dynamite]

Wow, thanks! ^^

I hoped I made her look malevolent enough and it looks like I nailed that. :) Yeah, the part of her crown on her forehead was kinda tough...lol. What do you mean by shawl though?

Oh, I was just wondering whether her hair was brunette and black or if she was wearing a head-dress of some sort. I was just curious!

[Anacybele]

Her hair has two colors in it, black and a sort of creamy brown. xP

[Caliban of Sycorax]

Skin? I thought I used the colors of most armor lining. I wanted it to be gold...ish like the lining on a lot of armor and such. Guess it wasn't a good idea. >_<

Most armor trims use skin color anyway. You can probably consolidate by using the skin color to shade the armor trim instead of the red. That way you can have a yellow-ish color like on some armor trims to make it look golden.

Just a note I noticed, the color you have in the eyes and the lips is darker than the outline.

If you're going to keep the red in the trim I'd recommend playing with the saturation a bit, only because it is kind of heavily saturated. A less saturated red would blend in with the black better and also give it a more blood-red look, which in my opinion would be a great final boss color.

[Klokinator]

In my opinion, most of the sprite looked okay, but the lips look fairly odd. Dunno, the green looks like an after effect of bulimia? xD

[Anacybele]

Most armor trims use skin color anyway. You can probably consolidate by using the skin color to shade the armor trim instead of the red. That way you can have a yellow-ish color like on some armor trims to make it look golden.

Just a note I noticed, the color you have in the eyes and the lips is darker than the outline.

If you're going to keep the red in the trim I'd recommend playing with the saturation a bit, only because it is kind of heavily saturated. A less saturated red would blend in with the black better and also give it a more blood-red look, which in my opinion would be a great final boss color.

I'm keeping the red trim cause I like it for a villain. I already have a character that wears black armor with gold trim anyway. The brown I used for the eyes came from an FE7 sprite, as did the red on the armor. I was always told to stick with one set of colors and I always use FE7 ones. xP

I didn't do anything to the lips except change the color of the lipstick to better fit Isis. The mouth was originally Helene's. xP Also, what green? There's no green in this mug. Only browns, blacks, reds, and grays really.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Anacybele

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Did you use the red from a portrait that had red trim? Because I agree the red could use a bit of tweaking to look good on the trim.

[Anacybele]

Did you use the red from a portrait that had red trim? Because I agree the red could use a bit of tweaking to look good on the trim.

No, because there aren't any FE7 or FE6 mugs with red trimmed armor. I decided to use Eliwood's hair color. It isn't bright, but I don't want bright or I'll hurt my eyes. lol

[Klokinator]

In any case, it looked green to me but on closer inspection it looks blackish? Either way, looks weird IMO.

[Anacybele]

Yes, gray to black lipstick, fitting for a villain like Isis.

[Anacybele]

So, I've finally done something sprite-related again. A map.

It's going to be used in a comic. it shows part of some village ruins nestled in a valley within a mountain range. Full description here. :)

[Chocolate Kitty]

the two circled cliff tiles do not work with the formation, they cause an impossible occurrence in nature(two cliffs side by side yet facing the opposite direction).

Other than the paths being a bit boring and the trees all being the same time, seems pretty fine to me.

Cliffs work sort of like this

the arrows detonate which direction the cliff is facing for future reference.

Edited September 3, 2013 by Kitty of Time

[Anacybele]

I don't get how it's not facing the same direction. o.O

I'll change it, but I still don't see this.

Also, there are a couple of different tree tiles...

Edited September 3, 2013 by Anacybele

[Anacybele]

Actually, scratch that, now I see.

Edited to make the trees more varied and to fix the cliffs.

It does look better! Thanks, Kitty!

[Chocolate Kitty]

Not a problem. o 3o

[Anacybele]

Well, after not doing anything sprite-related at all for a few months (aside from my comic series which I don't post here), I have a new map! It's the blank battle map for the fourth chapter of my main FE fic.

This time it's a town fight, right in the square. It might be a little boring, but it's a town square, which has a lot of open space. :P But it'll look more filled once I add the units. The enemies will include some archers this time as well as axe and sword users too.

[Samias]

That's a REALLY wide open map for a GBA game, even for a town squares. Also, the use of red roof houses with closed games would be a visual information no-no. The distinction between red roof houses and brown ones in-game is to tell the player at-a-glance information about whether or not a house gives a tangible reward for visiting it or not (ie stat boosters, weapons, even gold) or if they just get information from the house. Even though the gates are already closed, it's better just to keep things consistent and use the brown roof version. Not having the buildings completely on screen and cutting them off is also a bit off-putting. Also, the space in the center, by GBA game standards, is pretty huge. Overall this set-up is kind of boring and empty looking even for a town square. You could at least pepper in some trees or even some grass tiles.

Here's a lot of examples of urban areas. You're lacking in shops, armories, or even arenas, which are typically staples of a Fire Emblem town.

http://www.serenesforest.net/fe7/map/16x.PNG

http://www.serenesforest.net/fe7/map/23A.PNG

http://www.serenesforest.net/fe7/map/29x.PNG

http://www.serenesforest.net/fe7/map/20.PNG

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/NomadicTrooperGirl/media/VASM/5.png.html

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/NomadicTrooperGirl/media/VASM/9A.png.html

Even

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/NomadicTrooperGirl/media/VASM/Chapter11A.png.html

I don't like using FE6 as an example because it's not as refined, but if you wanted better looking housing blocks, this is still more interesting. And the square might look better overall as a big raised area with some foliage.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Samias

[Anacybele]

Well, seeing as the fic is a Tellius story, I wasn't trying to mimic the GBA games exactly. :P

There weren't any trees or grass tiles in the tileset I was using. All the shop and armory tiles were on grass too, not road, so I couldn't use them. If I import a different tileset into the Mappy file, it'll screw up the whole thing.

Any ideas on how I could still fix the boringness though?

Edited January 1, 2014 by Anacybele

[Lenh]

It seems adequate as a background for a sprite comic. With all the isolation it's very showdown-esque.

That's where I'm confused though: are you trying to make a game map or trying to supplement the fanfic with extra stand-alone material, or force one map to be both? They're two pretty separate goals, and I think putting in all the effort to gameplay detail will detract focus from the dialogue at the front (kind of like the having a ton of background activity in newscasts). If you're going for comic-only, you can probably just focus on making each frame pretty.

In a fixed panel-size comic you'll probably never get to appreciate the full map, except by providing it separately.

[Anacybele]

Kinda both. It's extra material, seeing as I don't have any hacking skills and it would be impossible to make a game out of this story using the GBA engine anyway, and I also plan to use it in a couple comics.

I make the whole map out first so it's easier to cut the sections I need for the comics and keep them consistent.

[Chocolate Kitty]

Well, seeing as the fic is a Tellius story, I wasn't trying to mimic the GBA games exactly. :P

There weren't any trees or grass tiles in the tileset I was using. All the shop and armory tiles were on grass too, not road, so I couldn't use them. If I import a different tileset into the Mappy file, it'll screw up the whole thing.

Any ideas on how I could still fix the boringness though?

what

did you use like

fe6's beta village tileset that I just made up?

every single gba village tileset has grass and trees, hence all of those examples have grass and trees

and for the record, importing new tilesets into mappy doesn't do anything but replace the tiles that are in the exact same location

aka if you used fe7 night village and wanted to change it to day, you'd just import the day tileset and voila everything is exactly the same but in the daytime palette.

[Anacybele]

Oh, I must not have noticed those tiles then.

And actually, when I imported different tilesets, the tiles I had already used changed entirely, screwing it up.

[Lenh]

You could build the whole town rather than just the scene. Might make the plaza fix itself. Can't make tile-based maps for anything though so eh I'm not much for advice. ^_^;

Visually, it might add more interest to the town if you added walls/stairs/elevation/waterchannels to the town as a whole, or aligned it to some grid/gaveClearStreets. Always liked the city maps in Thracia.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Lenh