Scribbles: Regrets and Surprises, Hopes and Expectations

[Jotari]

This is the unofficial self review thread where people can talk about their own work, what they think they did right and wrong as well as what they hope to do next year.

My story was titled Rebirth VI and I think the title is where I made my first misstep. Its a play on the name of the Endgame of Radiant Dawn and thematically works very well for the story, but for a competition like this I don't think it stood out enough. I also think the VI might have given people the impression it was the sixth installment of a fan fic. Though votes for it picked up at the end its view count seemed to lag behind a lot of the other stories (both those that were getting votes and those that weren't). So next year I might try to think of something more eye catching and snappier and beginning with the letter A.

I only got one bit of criticism on it, from Eclipse, who suggested a little more show and a little less tell. Something I agree with 100%. I was afraid of going to high in the word count department so I tried to make things more brief. I think the story suffered somewhat as a result. It was meant to be about loneliness and isolation but on review more than half of it is people talking (classic case of took an hour to write, thought it'd take an hour to read). The middle definitely needed to go at a slower pace to fully capture and explore Sephiran's misery. I also came up with a great idea after voting had started where he slowly starts talking to himself and develops a sort of split personality between Sephiran and Lehran. I feel like I didn't really put as much time into this as I should. I got it done in just a couple of days. So I reckon some time in the future I'll redo this piece and expand it greatly.

I was close but didn't get into the top 25 however I'm quite happy with my participation in the contest. I think I made a unique and well written piece and seems a few others agreed with me. I've already started coming up with ideas for something to do next year and I predict it'll be very interesting. I'd love to hear what others thought about their own piece (and also try and find out who wrote which pieces) and what they plan on doing for next year. Also for those still in the running for the top prizes, good luck. Personally I'm crossing my fingers in hopes of winning one of those amiibo!

Edited February 12, 2016 by Jotari

[Alex95]

Shadow of the Black Knight was mine. This was the second art I submitted (canned the first one), and I think it turned out rather well. I was told the perspective looks great and the shadow of the Black Knight is ominous, which is what I was going for, so that's good.

I do feel that the perspective could've been a little lower, though, and that there was more of a focus on Ike and Mist than there was of the room. While I like how Ike turned out, Mist ended up somewhat derpy and her eyes didn't come out the way I wanted them to.

Regardless of the errors, I got four votes, so I impressed some people! Hopefully I can win that Ike amiibo raffle. I really like Ike, in case you can't tell :P

A few of my other ideas was a piano medley of the main theme or a short game based off of FE. When next year's contest rolls around, I'll hopefully be able to do one of those, or at least become a better artist.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Power Master

[carefreejules]

Could the people who made it into the finals talk about their work here as well? Just because I don't think I will win in the end but I would like to talk about my work too :>

[Jotari]

Could the people who made it into the finals talk about their work here as well? Just because I don't think I will win in the end but I would like to talk about my work too :>

Animosity was always the default, not a rule. So sure. Plenty of people already talked about their work during the first round. Also congrats on making it to the finals.

[carefreejules]

Thanks! :>

My entry was Fire Emblem and I'm super happy that it made it far enough to be pitted into the finals. I'm really proud of the effort and work I put into it because usually with my drawings, I usually draw only a couple characters per piece so to have to draw over 16+ character was quite the challenge but I'm happy with the result! Since every Fire Emblem is someone's favourite, instead of drawing a piece from one game, I wanted to do something for all the Fire Emblems to show just how far the series has come.

Of course, I've gotten a lot of great feedback and critique on here and on Reddit and no words can describe how grateful I am for that because it's nice to know that there are people out there who are willing to spend their time giving you advice on how you could improve and that's something to be appreciated.

I think the two set backs for mine would be: size and title. Because it's so long and huge, people might not have the time to spare to scroll down to look at the rest of the picture and I think it would have helped if there was an additional link where people could see it in its entirety from a smaller scale. As for title, well, it's really unoriginal and generic hahahahahaha. By the time I figured out a possible better title, the time to change it had already passed so the fact that it had such a generic title, probably didn't spark interest in people.

I was going to call it Fire Emblem Timeline or All For One or just something really cheesy and lame hahahaha.

But anyway, it was really fun and I definitely have one piece of art from this year that I can be proud of.

[Limstella]

My Entry was Of Swords and Lords and I'm glad it got even a single vote lol. Normally, I draw a few characters, but for the contest, I tried something different and made it focus on some of the legendary weapons of the Lords. Originally, I wanted to do a brief GIF of all the lords fading in and out, or all the Lords making up the shield of seals. In the end, I wanted to do a bunch of the weapons from the series. I decided to enter last minute (Like a week before), so I hoped doing something focused on something different would make it stand out.

I think I had a lot of set backs, title, size, and the background. The title, because, it was sort of misleading, considering it was called "of sword And Lords while it focused on the swords, not the lords. I also probably should've resized it so it didn't take up all the page. The background's grass could've been neater.

Lastly, the silhouettes of the lords could've been done neater and better overall. (I doubt anyone could recognize them haha~)

In the end, I am glad I entered, for the joy of entering and fun of drawing this up ^_^

Edited February 11, 2016 by Manakete Morgan

[Thor Odinson]

I'm not very secretive about my entry (also most people who know me well enough can see my art style from a mile away, apparently--I still can't quite figure out what makes my style distinct haha), but to the ones who don't know, I painted Meteor Strike. It's actually a lot less polished than I'd like it to be, even though I put in a lot more effort into it than most of my other pieces, but sometime in January I realized I still have a programming project to finish, so there's quite a bit of polish and detailing in my original vision that I ended up skipping over.

Originally I was thinking of doing all 7 Odo characters (Ayra, Holyn, Larcei, Ulster, Shanan, Mareeta, Galzus) , but I couldn't find a composition that I was satisfied with, so I ended up just going with Ayra. Ayra's been a long-time favorite of mine, far before I was lobster trash. There's a few people who told me they expected me to draw Ryouma, but I feel that while us Judgral fans are loud, we're not really that high in number and we're severely lacking in representation in terms of fanworks. For all last summer all I really drew was Ryouma and the occasional Marx in the presence of Ryouma, so I can cut him a break and represent an older entries in the series.

Of course that does mean a lot of new people won't have any idea who I drew, as she's a non-lord from an unlocalized title, and second page doesn't really help (it was actually originally first page and named simply "Ayra" but I didn't want a boring name-only title so haha I screwed myself over?), but maybe if someone sees my Ayra and develops an interest in her and eventually get into the Judgral titles, then I did my job. I'm not here to win anyway, I just needed an excuse to put effort into art for the first time in about 3 years.

[secondworld]

Mine isn't very good. Lack of time spent working on it and lack of practice over the years sunk this ship.

I would like to keep going at this art thing though, and either make a drawing I can be proud of or think of something unique I can do.

[Sunwoo]

I planned and wrote this in an approximately 24 hour period, and then submitted it with barely any proofreading after finishing up on my master's thesis and then going to student teaching and school and my original entry idea fell through, throughout the 2-month period. Despite being rushed, on the second page, and having minor earlygame Fates spoilers, people told me they liked it and I got votes from Snike, Tangerine, and Balcerzak as well. I'd say that's an accomplishment. Now I'm going to go post this under my FFN account bye.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

My submission was The Destruction of the Taliver Bandits. I actually don't like the title, but I'm absolutely terrible with titles and it was seriously the best I could come up with. I wish I could have thought of something better and...well, just better! I suppose my mind isn't very creative.

I did not advance to the final round, but I did receive ten votes...so I guess that's something, right?

My story was based on Wallace's Support Conversations with Lyn, where he tells her he wiped out the Taliver Bandits and why he did it. My story was about his killing of the Taliver. I suppose that in and of itself may have hindered me, those supports are fairly obscure and Wallace is a fairly obscure character.

I did receive some criticism for it, but...I don't really agree with it. I'm not naming names or saying what it was for fear of receiving warnings or whatever, but I feel like it was kinda unfair, nit-picky, and not really true of the story. I honestly feel kinda cheated because of it...but, oh well.

I did receive some other constructive criticisms that were very helpful, though! I was told that some of the language was a little too clunky in some spots, and a couple things were too simplistic, and a sentence here and there seemed too "throw-away" and could have been removed with no consequence, and I was given advice on how to spot that in my writing and help avoid it. But overall, I was told by a few people that it was a good story...so it's even more upsetting that I didn't make it to the final round.

Overall I'm fairly happy with the final product. I can definitely see some things I could have improved, and I can see where some of the clunk and such was. I'll be working on fixing issues like that in future projects, and perhaps next year I'll enter again and see if I can advance.

[Inactive Account404]

My entry was The Fire Emblem ([topic=http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=60223&hl=][/topic]). I had no idea, the contest was going to be this big, and do regret not spending some more time on it. That, and the overall concept I guess wasn't very... exciting. I originally chose to do the fire emblem since it would be easily recognized by both old and new fans, but it didn't really seem to catch people's attention. Next year, I hope to maybe do a drawing of some sort.

[Busterman64]

(replying on phones kinda suck for this, so I waited till I could use my computer.)

Fire Emblem Uprising was my entry.

Personally, while I am proud of my work...I do feel like I could have done MUCH better.

I wanted to be different and make my own box art for a Fire Emblem game and I was going to make it epic (and have really good details too)! However...procrastination and personal life (mainly high school...I'm a senior right now by the way) took my focus a lot more than I thought it would and when I looked around, all I had were two weeks left. So I had to make time and actually force myself to sit down to draw the dang picture (thankfully, once I start, I'm good and on a roll. It's the starting part that messes me up :3 )! After restarting 3 times and changing things from my original idea, I came up with what I had envisioned...for the most part. From the get go, I already knew that I wanted it to be epic, but still somewhat simple like the older Fire Emblem games (more so Path of Radiance because I love that game :3 ). I even thought of doing something similar to PoR's box art, but I've never really drawn fading stuff before, so I was a little unsure (look at PoR's box art and you'll see what I mean.

Fast forward to the last two weeks, I decided to change gears and make it somewhat similar to FE7's box art and somewhat simple. Also, seeing how drawing hands in good detail is the bane of my drawing career a pain for me, I tried my best to not have hands in this drawing that much...which is why the woman in the middle got a rapier (like Eirika's) instead of a knife (I originally wanted her to be kinda a mixture of a pirate and a thief). Honestly, I could've made the background look interesting, but being short on time, I wanted the main thing to be done so that I wouldn't have to turn it in at the very last minute ( that was a tense night for me...and a sudden increase in school work didn't help either. In a way, I actually only had 1 week).

If you look at my drawing, my best part of it is probably the girl on the right. Although, she kinda looks like she's missing an arm and her ax is just sitting on her shoulder...somehow.

To make a long story short, I had a big vision for my drawing, but I used my time very poorly and had to change and cut a lot of things that would've been great on it. Oh well...

...*sigh*... While it is saddening to see my drawing barely even make a dent in the contest, I am happy to see that I still have a ways to go and that I am still pretty good at the point I am at now. I made this in such a short amount of time (with original characters too.....which I need to get better at making), so I wonder if I had used my time wiser, how much better would have it been? Hopefully next time I actually use my time wisely!

Kudos to all who made it!

(P.S. I also had an idea to make a story too......hhhmmm...maybe in the future... :3 )

[Snike]

I wrote The Sinner and The Saint, a narrative poem of sorts. It might not be the best title, but it both refers to the characters involved (Zelgius and Micaiah) as well as one of the repeating lines within the poem itself.

I was originally intending on writing a longer poem about the Tellius duology from Zelgius' perspective, but both writer's block and general business with school/ other commitments made me abandon that idea. So instead, we have this, a poem of 7 stanzas about 7 meetings between Zelgius and Micaiah, 3 officially non-canonical, then 4 canonical.

I think outside of the awkwardness Balcerzak noted in a few of the lines, I succeeded in the technical aspect of writing it. And, well, I made it to the final round by a good margin, so people generally liked the poem. I'm just a little unsure about the content, as while the motive behind it is to shed a little more light on Zelgius, Micaiah, and the relationship (non-rom) between the two of them, some of the ideas might be a little far-fetched(stanza 3). I haven't actually had any questions or discussions about the content, though, so maybe I'm just a little self-conscious about that.

If there's anything in my control that I'd probably change about the piece, outside of the awkwardness in certain lines, it would probably be to change it into a short story. While I like writing poetry and in a way it can be a happy medium between a picture and a written work, I feel as though there's a certain stigma around the word that might hamper a given piece in a written competition. Beyond that I haven't received enough criticism to say, one way or another.

All in all, I wasn't expecting to make it to the final round initially, so I'm already pleased in that sense. Hopefully I can make top 20, but even if that isn't the case, I entered this mainly to test to see how my work was received. It's been a resounding success. Thanks to everyone who voted for me, and good luck to everyone else in the finals.

[Alex95]

Fire Emblem Uprising was my entry.

I honestly thought was going to be a crossover between Fire Emblem and Kid Icarus

[Jotari]

I honestly thought was going to be a crossover between Fire Emblem and Kid Icarus

Same.

I haven't actually had any questions or discussions about the content, though, so maybe I'm just a little self-conscious about that.

I liked the original content in yours quite a bit. It's definitely possible they'd meet during Path of Radiance given Zelgius was publically controlling the Daein castles for a time and him bringing her to Daein is as nice as explanation as any since I don't believe the games themselves provide any hints as to how on earth Micaiah got there.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Jotari

[Snike]

I liked the original content in yours quite a bit. It's definitely possible they'd meet during Path of Radiance given Zelgius was publically controlling the Daein castles for a time and him bringing her to Daein is as nice as explanation as any since I don't believe the games themselves provide any hints as to how on earth Micaiah got there.

Thanks!

The FE wiki suggests that it was Sephiran whoud brought Micaiah to Daein, so it might be far out there, but I digress.. That being said, I think the first stanza's probably the most likely out of the first 3 to have hypothetically happened, due a related event in the Serenes Massacre.

I should probably emphasize what I meant when I mentioned stanza 3, so I think I'm going to do a stanza by stanza breakdown after all, once I have the time to do so.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Snike

[Jotari]

Thanks!

The FE wiki suggests that it was Sephiran whoud brought Micaiah to Daein, so it might be far out there, but I digress.. That being said,I think the first stanza's probably the most likely out of the first 3 to have hypothetically happened, due a related event in the Serenes Massacre.

I should probably emphasize what I meant when I mentioned stanza 3, so I think I'm going to do a stanza by stanza breakdown after all, once I have the time to do so.

I was under the impression Sephiran was completely unaware of Micaiah's existence until part 4.

[Ether]

Well, uhh, where to begin? I wrote Catnaps... I'm honestly shocked that I actually made it into the top 50 at all, so thank you to those who voted for it, as a starting point. I had a lot of worries about my writing style, and how I do things, so this does help... alleviate those worries, to an extent. With all of the crazy good submissions in the finals there's no way in hell I make top 10, but it was a fun ride. I don't know what else to say, really...

[Kinumi]

i started my drawing five hours before the deadline l0l

despite barely spending any time on my drawing i somehow got votes and even made it into the finals which made me really happy ;_; i experimented with a lot of things in my drawing and this is the first time i've ever shown my art to so many people and even though there are lots and lots of entries that are better than mine i am happy i participated

this was a huge learning experience for me

[Snike]

I was under the impression Sephiran was completely unaware of Micaiah's existence until part 4.

Same, which brings up a few questions which I'll probably touch on in thread.

[Rethel34]

Twin Roads Medley was mine, and while I managed to make it into the finals (much to my surprise), and I feel very pleased with the arrangement, my major regret is not trying to use better soundfonts (or even taking more time to perhaps try to convert it to a GBA-esque soundfont in places for nostalgic effect). I also realize that, although I personally love The Sacred Stones, which this music is from, it's not by any means the most popular of titles, and the lack of love the game gets probably set me behind from the get-go.

I also regret the amount of time I took deciding on what I would do. I only just got my submission in the morning of the set due-date because of my indecision and procrastination, and as a result, didn't put as much into the piece as I would have liked.

Regardless, I'm getting an early start on next year's submission. Maybe I'll do a short fanfic with an audio track and musical accompaniment or something. I'd like to do something like a fangame, but there's too much copyrighted stuff involved with such (not merely graphics and music, but also certain class names like Pegasus Knight and Manakete, among other things) to be able to circumnavigate it all and still be able to call it Fire Emblem.

I don't entirely know what I'll do yet, but ideas are abundant and I have a year to make sure next year's submission is five times as amazing as this year's.

[Nym]

My entry is The New Dark Dragon, I didn't manage to make to the final (but it's ok). It's was funny at first because I had no votes for quite a lot of times, I wonder if someone took pity on me xD.

I was quite happy for the few comments I got, especially since it's my first story in English.

I didn't know what to do at first. My first idea was a story about most of the lords of FE meeting up in one place (with myself too) but I was afraid that would take too long. After, I had a idea about all dragons in FE (with myself again) fighting over a common enemy but I scrapped that too. Then, I writted what I have now.

I already have a few ideas about next year's submission and I'll aim for the finals!

[Busterman64]

I honestly thought was going to be a crossover between Fire Emblem and Kid Icarus

Same.

I have the case for Uprising on my shelf( I don't own the game anymore...stupid me... :'( ) and that's kinda how the sub-title came to me.

Honestly though, you guys saying that kinda makes me wish I did something like that...oh well.......wait a second, crossover......crossover......!!!

...Suddenly, ideas for next year's contest are starting to really brew in my head now!

*rubs hands together evilly*

Next time,,,I'll be even better...count on it!

(I don't care if evilly is not a word. I SHALL USE IT!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! )

[Rethel34]

@Busterman: Sounds like you have quite the idea! :) Honestly I think many of us, now knowing the exact caliber of talent it takes to win this contest, understand what we need to do for next year, and are going to up our game accordingly, but the question is who will up their game the most, methinks

[Alex95]

Yeah, now that we all know the scope of the talent here, we're all going to have to try much harder!