Astelaine

Set 2: Desmond/Geese/Eliwood

That was a really cool stream, Seph! It's fun to watch your spriting process. Thanks for sharing. (I also greatly enjoyed you flipping out about FE Forever, hahaha!)

I'm not sure quite what you're getting at. Is this what you're looking for? You can input the RGB values for the color you want into the boxes on the bottom right (circled.) If you are asking which colors are useable for weapon icons, I believe you can use any color with RGB values divisible by 8.

New spriter? Awesome! Welcome to SF. :)

If both of you are in agreement about switching to battle sprites, that is cool. :) As to how far you can take it, well, I don't know much about battle sprites or what some good limits would be. The point of even establishing a limit is just to make sure that no party in the challenge is pressured to undertake a huge project. With that in mind, folks can suggest some battle sprite standards here, or you can find some consensus with your partner about a reasonable scope for your ambitions.

The enrollment deadline has passed, and sign-ups are now closed. Thank you to everyone who joined - we have a fantastic turnout with 26 total entrants and 13 teams. Awesome! And now, here's what you've all been waiting for: the team list! The match-ups were made using the random.org list randomizer. [Portraits] Team 1: Astelaine & Eclipse Team 2: Kon & Ponih Team 3: Freohr Datia & Acha Team 4: Solum & Ubel Engel Team 5: Mewiyev & Amelia Team 6: RisingSolaris & Kramgnauh Team 7: ShinyPichu & BwdYeti Team 8: Fuzz94 & The Merc Team 9: AthenaWyrm & Yoshi Team10: ObLivia & MarioKirby Team 11: MiniBladez & Lenh Team 12: Redfield & Seph1212 [battle Sprites] Team 13: Mercenary Lord & Deranger Now that everyone's been matched, please make sure you re-read the rules in the first post, and send a forum PM to your partner to get started! Feel free to use this thread to coordinate with each other as well, or to discuss anything about the project. All sprite entries are due in my PM inbox on Sunday, March 31st. That's just over three weeks away, so plenty of time. :) Good luck, teams!

You're in, Pichu! Updated the OP about a battle sprite category. Please let me know if you want to do battle sprites only, so Mercenary Lord can have a partner. As for the enrollment deadline, I'm setting it at Wednesday, March 6, 11:59pm (EST). If you want to join and haven't already, please do so by then. I'll post the partner listings sometime on the 7th.

I marked you down in the OP as interested in battle sprites. Is there anyone else who wants to do only battle sprites? If so, you can be partners. :) I put the emphasis on portaits because that is what most spriters here tend to focus on, but we can definitely have a battle sprite category if enough people (read: more than one) are interested. Good for you! Welcome aboard. I really hate that there's this whole "culture of shame" in art communities about being a newcomer/less practiced/whatever. There's no need to be ashamed about your ability or apologize for it, no matter what you think it is. You don't have to be a certain height to ride this ride, so I am glad you joined. I hope you will have fun with the challenge!

Woo! Thanks for joining! Will PM you when I've rolled for your partner. :)

Oooh, raffle for next theme selection, sounds good! Thanks Seph! Addin' y'all to the participant list! Let me know if you have any questions. Haha, that's the fun of it!

03/07 edit: The team listings have been announced! Enrollment is now closed! Hi folks! It's time to shake things up around here! We've had plenty of competitions/activities for solo spriting work, but relatively little attention has been paid to joint projects. I think this is an area with a lot of potential - I've seen some really awesome pieces come out of collaborations between spriters, and in my personal experience, working with others has helped me to learn and pushed me to up my game. With that in mind, it's time for... Super Spriting Team Challenge! How it Works Interested parties respond to this thread with a confirmation that they will participate. After the enrollment period, participants will be randomly matched with a partner. From there, the teammates have three weeks to make a sprite together. All finished entries will be PMed to me (Astelaine.) At the end of three weeks, we'll have a big showcase thread where we reveal and discuss the entries. If there happens to be an odd number of participants, I'll sit out in order to ensure that everyone has a partner. What is the point of this? The point is for spriters here on SF to meet new people and work with spriters they wouldn't normally imagine working with. By collaborating, we can make new friendships, learn new techniques from each other, and hopefully create something badass that combines each participant's strengths. And of course, have some silly fun. If you go into this looking to win or prove that you're the best, you are doing it wrong! What if I get paired with someone I dislike/someone I think is bad? Deal with it! Don't enter if you're going to be picky about your partner. Like I said, the aim of this challenge isn't to win. People with a great disparity in skill might end up matched together, and that's okay. Experienced spriters have a lot to offer newcomers, and even newcomers have unique talents they bring to the table in terms of ideas, designs, or just a fresh set of eyeballs to catch errors with. That said, if you have an arch-nemesis out there you absolutely can't work with, send me a PM and I'll make sure you aren't paired together. How should we work together? Who should do what? There's no right or wrong way. Part of the challenge is to decide on a process that works for both people involved. It's up to you to figure out how you handle it! What if my partner drops out or we break up as a team? If you can't continue working together for any reason, you are allowed to complete your project on your own and submit it independently. Will there be voting? Nope! The challenge is cooperative, not competitive. We'll raffle off the choice of the next round's theme to a team with a completed entry. Other assorted rules - GBA-style Fire Emblem portaits only. Battle sprites are a separate category - please respond below if you're interested in a battle sprite/animation partnership. - 16 color limit (15 + 1 background color.) FE7 or FE8-style colors are preferred, but this isn't super-strict. - According to their desire, teams may splice, full custom, or anything in between. - To keep the challenge approachable for people of all skill levels, all portaits must be roughly hack-box sized (ie, must fit within a 96x80 box, or something close to it.) This isn't strict - you can go outside those dimensions - but no full or half-bodies, please. - Only one entry will be permitted per team, unless the team has chosen to split up and submit independently. Enrollment is currently closed. Team sprites should be PMed to Astelaine on or before Sunday, March 31st. Challenge Theme: Sprite a Lord character! This can be an existing FE lord, or an original character meant to lead a Fire Emblem army - however you choose to interpret it. Team Listings [Portraits] Team 1: Astelaine & Eclipse Team 2: Kon & Ponih Team 3: Freohr Datia & Acha Team 4: Solum & Ubel Engel Team 5: Mewiyev & Amelia Team 6: RisingSolaris & Kramgnauh Team 7: ShinyPichu & BwdYeti Team 8: Fuzz94 & The Merc Team 9: AthenaWyrm & Yoshi Team10: ObLivia & MarioKirby Team 11: MiniBladez & Lenh Team 12: Redfield & Seph1212 [battle Sprites] Team 13: Mercenary Lord & Deranger Good luck, everyone! Feel free to use this thread to coordinate or discuss the project!

Ooooh, I like this guy. His collar is uneven, though - I would raise the left collar (opv) by 1 px and lower the right one by 1 px. The lightest shade in his armor trim (the yellow) could also stand to be brighter, for better contrast. Finally, the two thick strands of hair to the upper-right of his ear need smoothed out, both in their curve and their anti-aliasing. Other than that, lovely. I adore his face! Good job, Nayr. Edit: Ohh, his scar should curve with the shape of his face too. Looks kind of off to me atm.

Hi Solaris! I love this new green guy! You have definitely improved, and he is on his way to looking fab. However, his eyes need a little care, especially since eyes are arguably the focal point of the sprite and one of the most important ways to convey a character's personality. So let's see what we can do! Tooled around a bit: your original on the left, fixes on the right. Not perfect, but definitely a bit more readable and human-looking. From this we can see that: - Eyes need to have a distinct upper line. No matter what its shape, whether it's curved or more flat, the upper lid line should be 1) dark and 2) unbroken. Your original lid lines are relatively light, and they're also broken up by specular glares (the brightest spot on the eye, where the light reflects off the eyeball.) I darkened the lines up, using the outline color for most of the line, softened by the 5th and 4th skin shades at the ends. I moved the specular down 1px, off of the eyelid line, and onto the eyeball proper. Only characters with very small eyes, like Duessel, will have the specular/eye highlight on the upper lid line. Also, keep in mind that the specular will be brightest on the right eye (opv), the one closest to the viewer. Use the lightest skin shade, or a white. The left/far eye's specular should use the 2nd skin tone, to create the illusion that it is farther away. - The right eye needs lowered by 1 px. The placement of his eyes needs to match the angle of his face. Since his face is looking up a bit (and is not tilted towards the floor) that will mean his left/far eye needs to sit higher than the right/near one. See: Eliwood, Hector, Canas. The more extreme the head tilt, the more one eye will need to sit higher than the other. Check Amelia's sprite for an example. - Because the eyes get alot of visual attention, keep that area of the face as neat as possible. You've got some blobs of 3rd skin shade around the far eye that need to be reduced, and the eyebrows need smoothed a bit. Being picky here will pay off very well for your sprite! I think that's it. The only other thing I can think of (non-eye related) is that you've pillow shaded the trim, pauldrons, and neck. Definitely try to ref existing mugs and clean it up if you can. Good luck with the rest! I am looking forward to seeing your progress on this sprite. :)

Hi Acha! I've always liked your Reiji mug, but something about the face is definitely off. I mucked around with it to try to give you some suggestions for improvement - I hope you don't mind! Your version on the left, my fixes on the right. It's not perfect, but I think it corrects his facial arrangement a bit. Here's what I recommend: - Move the left eye (opv) and the nose to the right by 1 px - Shorten the nose by 1 px and adjust the shape of the tip. Reduce some of the shading on the bottom of the nose too. - Raise the mouth by 1 px and add a short row of pixels to the top-left of it to make its shape match the angle of the face (see ref) - Adjust the angle of the bottom lip line to match the mouth - Remove the 2nd skin shade under the eyes - Add more 2nd skin tone at his jaw/cheek for better cheek definition - Make the curve of the lower jaw convex instead of concave, so he doesn't look bony/starved - General shading cleanup where the jawline meets the neck, and where the jawline meets the ear - Add more hair to the top-left (opv) of his head, and pull those topmost strands of hair out by a few px, so his head doesn't look malformed/caved-in. - Shorten the neck by 1 px You also really need to pay attention to jaggy lines/antialiasing: Check out the hair on the left, where the darkest shade near the ear meets the lightest shade. You are antialiasing with the second (medium) shade too much. It should look like the example on the right instead. I know AA'ing is tough to explain - so just make sure you observe the original FE7 mugs closely, to see how they are shaded/AA'ed. Keep one next to your sprite while you work, if you aren't already! The goal is to make your sprite look as smooth as possible, is if it weren't made out of tiny square dots. That's it for now - good luck with your sprites! Looking forward to seeing those finished ones. :)

I have a Cecilia edit I've been un-derping. Can toss it to you on Skype.

Seriously! Not only is the design amazing, but it's rendered so cleanly... and the play of light on the scales is just... *melts all over keyboard* Congrats, and I hope you enjoy Awakening, Yeti!

Wow, how did I miss this thread until now? Amazing stuff, Prax! I'd seen your art around the interbons before but didn't know you'd been on SF. Your characters really resonate with personality and energy - love it!

Haha, yeah, it gave me a ton of trouble and there was no way to pull it together in time. :P

Seriously excellent entries, guys. These are amazing! Ranking was so hard. T_T Sent rankings by PM, btw.

Hey Lenh, what time do the submissions close? (This is important to know because of my work schedule tonight. :P) Thanks!

That DoF music is sexy. Just saying. Love it!

Wow, nice work, Agro! Kala's map sprite looks excellent! It's definitely much improved with the new last frame. As for the music - hrrg, nostalgia! For the most part, the FE4 tunes sound great with the FE7 instruments. The only thing I don't really like is the distortion guitar in Lion King Eltosian, which sounds a bit weird to me. (Haha, I don't know crap about music, so I can't really give better crit on that one.) I know you wanted to avoid piano, but a more traditional instrument might suit the piece better. Awesome overall, though - can't wait to hear these used in some hacks!