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Errant's Thread O' Sprites: ~Evolution~


ErrantDShepherd
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@ Ghast

Cheers man, high praise! Especially nice to hear from a fellow battle spriter. I really need to work on my armor/animal stuff though... haven't done so much of that, but hey practice makes better? My figures/base body and clothing at least in battle sprite form are pretty decent I will give you that...

Also, if I'm one of the better in the community, I guess we need to develop/get more battle spriters on here. :/::P:;):

*misses the active days of Blind Archer and Yeti back on FEPlanet* :sob:

...but yeah, thanks a lot bud. Still need to develop those animation skills, but glad my design skills aren't too bad.

@ Deranger

Yeah, that is my big project/goal/whatever for the FE GBA battle sprites... Wonder if I should try and make it some sort of community project/collaboration if other people are interested in it too. :3:

@ Klok

Yeah, I like the thought of the naming convention too... though Master sounds a lil awkward/unspecific to me... I dunno Axe Master doesn't quite work either though, does it?

Its an interesting thought making Journeyman its own tier at least.

Glad you liked the Thief and Male Troub. Basically trying to get it not super far off from the Mageknight and Female Troub. designs while also looking not like a man in a dress... gotta figure out some way to give him the feather though, think that would tie the two designs together a bit better.

Out of curiousity, on the Thief, you mean the top right/third thief sprite as your favorite, right? With the completely uncovered arms? Instead of the fourth with one arm covered?

...back about the Cavs, hmm... yeah, I guess the design has to be a bit more distinct/unique to make people bother/want to use it. I just dislike how the base Cavalier looks. Or rather how his armor looks. Figured this tweak was a simple tweak to make it match the art of Sain/Kent a little better.

Might look into redoing the Paladin's though. My idea is to try to rework the Centaur sprite into a decent Horse and add a rider from there... as I have no practice with horses/animals.

....and lemme address those last few comments too, as I appreciate all the replies I recieve! :lol:

@ Midnight Star

Hah, thanks! I like how Lowen's hair turned out too! :)

@ Siuloir

Hah, cool... I wanna see that Cav fix sometime. As I was saying to Klok, the idea with the Cav tweak was to not have to throw out/rework entirely a decent sprite. I don't dislike the Cavalier sprite, just feel its armor design is a little unappealing to my eyes. I get tired of seeing it all the time, whereas I don't feel quite that way with the Mercenary/Myrmidon sprites for whatever reason.

Good advice, will have to actually work on some of my custom works animations soon. :>_<:

@ Dragoncat

Thanks for the cookie! *takes* :D:

Cheers, thanks for the input! I like how the hair turned out too, I feel like sometimes the GBA sprites could use just a little more variety. Like even just the minor tweaks they have with Raven's Hero, Guy, Lucius's Monk hair, the long haired Thief, Rebecca and Serra's sprites... They give the game and the characters more uninqueness, distinctness/personality.

Like how in Path of Radiance the majority of characters aren't just identical to their Base class design... I love that! Gives the world/designs more life in my opinion... but I digress. :awesome:

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I think that's all the replies? My apologies if I missed anything or anyone, once again... I really love feedback, gives me that extra boost/enjoyment to know my work is being enjoyed, or to hear some ways to improve it! So, keep it coming guys! Thanks for all the great responses, thoughts, critiques and advice! :^_^:

...and hey, I should probably be focusing more on my School readings, but I have some more stuff I have been working on!

FE-CustomVillager2_zpslwa83tkf.png

-Villager! In three sizes yet again... the first two sprites are my initial attempts at the design... As you can tell, the Pupil and Journeyman were pretty heavily referenced for it... But Ghast(thanks for the C&C bud) thought it was maybe a bit too similar, which I agreed with, and that the pose was maybe too ready for action for a Villager/former Civilian... some good critique and thoughts...

So with that in mind I look at some of my other sprite bases for inspiration, and looked back to an FE6 archer splice kicking around on my WIP sheet and my old Swordsman custom. Think the pose/base sprite looks a bit better/more unique now. :)

I eventually settled on the third design which is a little more similar to the Awakening Villager design... Not an exact representation mind you, no Pot Helmet, or the extra details on the jerkin/shirt. But then I wasn't trying to have it be a copy, more just inspired by it.

My animation plans for this lil guy are to try and utilize some of the Skeleton/Bonewalker animations from FE8, with some Recruit and Soldier thrown in for the Lance poses.

-----

,,,anyways, thoughts? As always, all thoughts, comments, criticisms, cookies and general streams of consciousness are very much appreciated! Thanks for checking out the thread. :D

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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As always they look amazing! A few small crits though.

The left opv shoulders on the first two look too far out, I'd try pulling them in just a pixel or two.

The last three look great but very similar. idk. Maybe you could make a few more distinctions.

Elbow on number three looks too far down his arm. Left opv forearm on the last one looks too large.

Overall I love their designs, and I want to see what you can do with them.

Keep up the good work!

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@ Smirks

Thanks bud! Yeah, I shoulda boxed the two guys on the left separately. They were the 1.0, 2.0 versions, whereas the three similar guys are Villager 3.0... In small, medium and large builds.

With that in mind I think I like the larger forearms of the large build to emphasize his largeness/strength. Good point on the small build elbow though, I should fix that.

Just to reiterate they are suppose to be in the same outfit,but perhaps I should vary it up a bit, make the big guy more warlike, small more mageish?

Thanks a bunch for the comments and thoughts! Would love some more feedback on anything here. ;)

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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No other comments on the villager yet? >.>

Anyways, been working on various things. Been chatting with some fellow spriters on Skype! Very enjoyable, and some great advice/critiques have been had from the likes of Ghast, Lord of Gabriel Knight and Astra... So kudos and thanks to all you guys!

Latest iteration of the Male Troubadour here, was chatting with Gabe and he offered some tweaks to my design. Had a great time tweaking/editing it back and forth. So with his permission and full credit to Gabe for his(I assume, sorry if wrong bud) help, I present Malroubador 2.0!

Custom-MaleTroubadourEDITv2_zps3q9abhuz-

-Ghast and Astra thought it was looking a little girlish, even chesty, so I removed that one pixel of shading in the chest armor to make it seem more flat. Gave the design some trim to help it look more distinct from the female as well. Little headband to connect to his Feather as it seemed odd without it for the Male. Not sure on the shading on the belt atm though... Kinda mixing into the trim atm. :\

Any suggestions how to fix?

As always, all thoughts, comments, criticisms, cookies and general streams of consciousness very much encouraged and appreciated! Love hearing your feedback! Thanks! :D

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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Might I suggest shortening the tunic and/or changing the pants colour to something other than white? The tunic looks a tiny bit like a dress at the moment and the white looks like he's wearing leggings (rather than, say, a cavalier, who's definitely wearing trousers). That and the very dainty-looking staff are probably contributing to the overall femininity of the sprite.

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@ Klok

Not a bad idea... But feel armor would change the Troubador's general aesthetic of a light horseman too much... But some armor would be cool, maybe for that Dark Knight horseman idea you had.

@ Agro

Hmmm... That is a good suggestion. Will have to try it out see how it looks.

Thanks! :D

...any suggestions/thoughts on any of the other postings? Like the Fighters, Villagers, or Lords?

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The magic classes have always used the same staff for different genders, so I don't know why it would make the guy look feminine here.

Because the Troubadour is the only female-exclusive staff-using class? So I guess they didn't take it into account?

The medium-sized fighter is my favourite. It's a welcome change from the blockhead fighter and looks like a much more proportional representation of the class. It'd be pretty cool to see it animated, as with most of your works :P:

The villager is pretty cool, but there's not an awful lot to say about it. It'd be pretty cool to see female versions as well, for completion's sake. Funnily enough I was just thinking you could use the skeleton animations as bases for bow/lance/axe/sword animations--a magic/staff animation would be pretty cool on top of that too.

I think it was mentioned but your green lord T2's lance magically goes through his cape :P: But I love the design of the lance. Bow lord just kind of looks like a cooler version of Roy with a bow, not sure if that's what you were going for...

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@ Gabe

...make a good point. I rechecked the base cleric and other staff wielding sprites... Did not see a difference in any of the designs of the staff between gender, except sometimes the Male Staff was longer due to being taller.

I don't think the staff seems particularly girly to me, it's barely different from the Priest staff, just some of the top crystal pixels are shifted around... but I can try making more masculine in some other ways.

@ Agro

Awesome, thanks for the feedback!

As I said to Gabe, I did check it out... didn't see any real difference in the Troub staff from the Priest staff myself. But those other suggestions for making him more masculine sound good.

Glad you like the Fighters... Yeah, Medium Fighter was the most difficult to get to look right, glad you like how it turned out.

Hmm... female villagers would be a good addition... and lol, yeah I'd like to see them animated too! >.> <.< :D

On the axe/lance Lord, its uh, a magic lance? Yeah yeah... uh... well, guess I should figure out how to fix that. :P

Well, speaking of Roy and the bow lord that does seem ironic as I did reference Roy for the head. Wasn't really going for a Roy vibe with the design, but I don't particularly mind the similarity at the moment... His t2 design is planned to look obviously different/upgraded... so maybe that will remove the Roy association?

-------

...once again, thanks for the feedback! Great stuff!

Thanks to all those who have given their thoughts, comments, criticisms, cookies and so forth! Its all very much appreciated!

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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...looking through some old sprites. Thought I'd showcase some oldies... not necessarily FE style but hopefully interesting or cool.

Erwand FF2 style, Full Scratch.

069dc6b487e0637ed4daeaa8f5f2f711.png

...will look to see if anything else old worth displaying. As you can tell, I never did finish that face XD

EDIT:

...ah hell, let the embarassment begin! XD

[spoiler=click for lolbad old sprites]

Most of these have pretty lol-anatomy-wuts-that? and lol worthy shading... majority of these are like, what circa 2005-2007? Maybe 2008?

7051b9e1ce9862f5e0a37c50bdb115ef.png

-Slightly earlier variation of the same sheet...

225e095f5a1a767c9fabb5b6fef04398.png

-Custom Monk named Kale...

232c058f3f66ea3fd71df36ee5db4f5d.png

-lolbad... Hey that guy seems familiar... Yeah, my OC Erwand there... I started with RPGmaker sprites, but then moved into Megaman edits! This is... I dunno, at least a step up from a straight up edit of the Megaman sprite? ...those colors though... my eyes! DX

1f29bdd8749432a5195b9d248b3d212a.png

-slightly better... sheet for cameos in Megaman Sprite Comics... still kinda bad though. But at least colors were a bit less eye bleeding.

e02b13490950d36b9d0aba0fac4fd274.png

-Not much better... wow... those colors... XD

As you can tell, I went through a period of trying the Erwand character in different sprite styles... This is Earthbound Erwand... Kinda cute I guess?

8017be264ed0cc87287f71d28c8b817c.png

-...and hey, here's that RPGmaker sheet... not finished up, but whatever. This is the better RPGmaker2k sheet than the original... I dunno if I even have that awful mess anywhere still... You'll recognize Erwand's(That dual dagger thief) current redesign look.

735f7c07a6a32aa36d33034a85f04291.png

-...and HEY! Finally some Fire Emblem style old works not already in this thread... From a community splice/edit comp. on FEPlanet... Pretty recolor Batta?

6993b341c255b2c03e433c942cb32a85.png

-Random DBZ-esque edit/splice FE character in avatar form... I called him... HARR!!!!! (note: had not known of actual FE Haar at the time, but I guess... he could be his rival? :o )

33b31c67c780c71912c85fe01b46f907.png

-...and finally, inspired by Yeti's "epic mount" Makalov riding a Bidoof sprite on FEPlanet, I thought... well, my screen name is shepherd... why not make a sheep mount?

...Hopefully seeing some of my earlier works made you smile/laugh/gave you hope. Keep at it and, well... your work can get better if you put some time into it! XD

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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I like the sheep herder class, make it like a cavalier maybe a little stronger but with less move ;]. The male troubadour is pretty, would like to see that in a hack actually. What would the male equivalent of Valkyrie be called?

I see you made the villager, are you going to make gba equivalent of bride? :^_^:

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@ deranger

Heh... Sheep herder/Shepherd to Sheep Rider eh? ...that could be fun/interesting...

@ MidnightStar

Cool. Thanks for the feedback! ...heh, I guess something like Shepherd/Sheep Herder to Ram Rider would sound kinda cool.

Glad you like the male troub, gotta finish it eventually... As for male Valkyrie...

I dunno... Reaper/Reaver would be a somewhat equivalent image, or Azrael angel of death... Maybe something like Charon, the Greek ferryman to Hades would work as a title/class name?

...didn't quite like the name Bride... But the class concept could still work I guess.

------

...once again, thanks for the feedback! All other thoughts, comments, criticisms and otherwise very much appreciated! :D

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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Just gyazoed them while working on them in Paint. Slightly rushed as gotta go off to school.

EDIT:

More shading work... Less zoomed... need to look at the shading on like Hector and Hero pants to get that white pants right... :\

c106b2bb4b62b67ead8c4a484e6be1e1.png

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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  • 2 weeks later...

@Ghast and deranger

Its funny... that sword was originally just a placeholder sword I made for him... but its grown on me too. The hair also turned out a bit better than I hoped... still thinking I might try to tweak bits of the pallete though.

Glad you're both liking the look of him... I was trying to get something kinda Lordly... but action Lord? ...didn't want his design too cluttered either(or I was just too lazy to figure out how to make a more intricate design look good, take your pick there?) :P

It is a hard balacing act between intricacy and overcomplicated, simplicity and plainess... I hope my designs strike a bit more on the side of readibility and simplicity though sometimes I wonder if they just look too... uninspired, unoriginal, uncomplicated?

----

Hoping to get some more done on him once I finish up some school projects and my Showdown entry on the weekend. As for now, tweaked the cape and the shading a bit... I need to figure out a shape for it that isn't quite so "obviously Hector's cape" and a bit more dynamic than the previous one I did... Also fiddled with seeing if I liked his head facing back or forward to see what it looked like... Been thinking of maybe turning that original pose I was trying to get down into perhaps a dodge pose? >.>

a20b405664c5132c3b6aac7426d46ba5.png

-Less ginormous big image... Still working on that shading/cape... unsure if the boot shading is better or not now... :\

Not much of an update... but hey, working on school stuff. ;)

...looking at this again, I'm kinda feeling like I need more contrast in the pallete right now... as some colors are getting hard to distinguish/blended into each other at least to my eyes. :|

----

As always, any thoughts, comments, cookies, criticisms and general streams of consciousness are very much appreciated! Thanks for all the great feedback once again! :D

EDIT: Nice... we made "HOT" status guys! ...we did it! XD

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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