Astelaine

17.

It's Seth. Need one say more? Always useful. Totally hot. Could save the entire continent all by himself. 10/10.

Also went for Maklo. His Dieck is the cleanest, and the design is both cool and easily identifiable as a swordmaster. Crocket's is interesting too, but the shading needs some work and the design doesn't immediately suggest an FE class to me. That said, nice work, guys :)

Voted Prime - that is one sexy water map! I also really liked Elincia's and Leaf's. Celice's is wicked smooth too, but I already gave him a vote for a lava map back in the day. Nice work, everybody, and good turnout. Y'all should choose a smaller map for the next round, too.

Wow, that Skrimir. Unf! In all seriousness, that's some fucking excellent hair. I'm just mesmerized by all the details. Beyond that, his face, pose, and clothes are excellent too, and all the shading is so smooth. Gosh, Vamp. P.S. Will love you forever if you finish that Haar from the first page.

I am loving Elliot's updated hair - the definition and arrangement of the strands are lovely. :)

This list needs Haar and Adult!Finn.

Yep! I remembered that crit and fixed the trim. :) Thanks, Seph! This is my opinion too. The new one's shading is just plain better. Feaw and Warg, what in specific did you prefer about the old one? The shading? The shape? That the left bang flicked out instead of curving towards the face? There's not much I can do without more info.

Holy crap, Ecut! That battle sprite is a thing of beauty! Female units with axes make me weep for joy. I really hope you go on to finish this. :) Oh, right. I have to be constructive. Hrm, after staring at it a bit, I agree with Seph about the legs. They look pretty long in the last couple frames. Take this with a grain of salt though - battle sprites aren't my area of expertise at all. Overall, though, it's freakin' fabulous. And no cheesecakey knockers - hallelujah!

Boney! It's good to see you! <3 I'm glad you're still lurking, even if you aren't into FE much anymore. Thanks for the thumbs-up! Epsilon, thanks too! Hopefully the dancer will be done soon. I don't have that much left to finish. :) Also, updates on adult Archibald: -> Amelia made a super-awesome young Archibald for Dream of Five, and his hair looked sooo good that I revamped this Arch to have hair more like Amelia's. Thank you for the hair inspiration, Amely! You're so good at it!

Purple Knight, thanks for posting that tutorial! I really think it will benefit people who want to make custom settings for their projects. However, it obviously doesn't address some of the problems with world-building that arise specifically in regards to Fire Emblem hacking. To that end, I'd like to add some advice to Bryant's that might help the hacking community. BEFORE BUILDING Step 1 If you've decided to use a custom setting in your hack, there's a critical question you should ask yourself before you even open the world-building tutorial: "What kind of story do I want to tell?" This seems really obvious, but keep in mind that you should not be world-building in a vacuum. Your setting should be tailored to bring out the kinds of conflicts or situations you want to write about. The nature of Fire Emblem's gameplay is such that it entails a certain kind of story already; it will at least involve war and armies. Beyond that, there is still a lot of space for your own concepts. Is it a story about revenge? Redemption? Chasing a lost love? Rebellion? Creating a utopia? Coming of age? Loss? An exploration of power in feudal society? Or chasing tail and horribly failing? (I love you, Maiden Quest.) Whatever you choose, your concept dictates the kind of things that populate your world: it needs to contain the things that make your story possible. For example, a hack about a rebellion might require that your world involves a recent conquest, the oppression of a native populace, and a protagonist who has both the personal motivation and ability to lead said rebellion. Needing those things in turn leads to further questions: why did this invasion happen? Why and how are wars carried out in this world? Why is this populace rebelling, and what is the source of the oppression they face? What happened to the protagonist that makes him/her compelling and places them in this role in the story? Answering all these will help you to flesh out your setting. In short, your concept - the kind of story that you want to tell - anchors the world-building process and ensures all the details you generate are relevant to your hack. Keep your concept firmly in mind as you go through the tutorial. Step 2 That said, there's still one more important thing to consider before you begin. After you've chosen a basic concept, ask yourself: "What are my limitations?" Writers working on a novel have the freedom to make up whatever setting they like. They are restrained only by their creativity, choice of words, and genre or editorial expectations. However, depending on what kind of team, talent, and time you bring to your hacking project, the range of settings you can create for your game is necessarily limited. Fire Emblem conveys story information in only a few ways: in-game text, visual elements/art assets, and gameplay mechanics. Your custom setting can only be shown off in these ways, and then only if you can modify the original game in the way you want. You will not be able to create a setting or characters wildly divergent from the existing game assets without the aforementioned team, talent, and time to produce new or modified assets. Again, this sounds obvious, but far too many hacks die - or never even make it out of the planning stage - because the ambition of their ideas outpaces the resources they are able to marshal for the project. This is why you MUST explicitly consider your limitations in order to have a successful hack. Consider: -> Do my concept, and the setting enabling that concept, require new or modified graphics? -> If so, what kind of custom graphics? Will I need portraits, battle sprites, map sprites, palettes, UI elements, CGs/backgrounds, chapter maps, new map tiles, etc? How many of each? -> What about non-graphical custom work like event programming or ASM hacking? -> Who will make these assets? What can I make myself, and what can I enlist others to make? -> Are my talents and the talents of these others enough to meet the ambition of my ideas? -> How much time do I have? How much time do my teammates have? -> When would I like to complete my hack, or at least release a demo? -> Are my helpers/teammates reliable, and will they meet deadlines I set? In addition, consider this helpful game industry adage: Any task requiring human effort can be "fast, good, or cheap. Pick two, and ONLY two." (And on rough days or with limited resources, pick only ONE. Also, keep in mind that because we rely on generosity in this community and don't typically accept money for spriting or hacking work, you are already choosing "cheap" as one of your options.) In short, take stock of what you can reasonably make or handle for your hack, and do not build a story or setting that goes beyond those limitations. AFTER BUILDING Once you've chosen your story concept, noted your resources and limitations, and gone through the tutorial accordingly, you should have a fleshed-out setting for your hack, including your main protagonists and villains. The task at hand is now to outline your plot and chapters, and figure out how to convey the flavor and details of the setting you've just created. Since setting (and not plot) is the focus of this thread, we'll discuss the latter. As mentioned above, Fire Emblem conveys story and setting information in the following ways. Utilize as many as you can in order to more fully immerse players in your world! Textual Elements - Map/Overworld Narration: Your concept, setting, plot, and conflicts should be inextricably linked, so the "big ideas" or big problems of your world will show up when the third-person narrator introduces each chapter and talks about what your protagonist is doing. - First-Person Narration: Dream of Five does this particularly well; there is no overworld map, so the protagonist introduces or recaps chapters through her journal entries. Like third-person narration, aspects of your setting will be shown off when the character discusses what he or she is dealing with. - Info Screen Details: Both the character and class blurbs on the info/stat screen can offer details or make suggestions about the kind of world said character lives and works in. - Dialogue: Narration happens relatively infrequently in Fire Emblem games; most of the story, setting, and context for the gameplay mechanics are explained through characters talking to each other. There is a lot of potential here for showing off your setting and introducing flavor. Your characters can discuss different aspects of their world, including their countries, political and religious beliefs, etc - anything that is relevant to the situation at hand. How your characters talk (their diction and accent) is also important, and can show off their social standing. This provides characterization information and setting detail at the same time. Specific kinds of dialogue you can use to show off your setting are: - Opening and ending chapter events: Like the narration, these will mostly deal with the details of the setting most relevant to the conflict at hand. - Intra-chapter events (happen in the middle of the gameplay when certain conditions are met) - Boss battle conversations - Death quotes - Support Conversations: These have a ton of potential for setting exposition. Unlike opening and ending dialogue, supports let your characters discuss aspects of the setting that you like but are too tangential to be included in the main story space of the game. Make sure to study dialogue writing in order to improve your hack. While the gameplay may be enough keep people playing, conversations that convey important information to the player in a natural way are critical to enjoyment of the story. Visual Elements - Background Images: The visual environment you create in your hack will show off your setting as much as the dialogue. Remember that a picture is worth a thousand words. Which backgrounds you use will show the player what kinds of locations exist in your game's world. - Chapter Maps: The maps that make up the play space also have great potential to reveal setting details. Tileset and palette choices can convey an area's climate and geography, mood, population density, wealth, national colors, etc. - Overworld Map: Very few hacks have made use of a world map, much less a custom one. However, if you managed it, you would be able to directly show players the geographical makeup and political boundaries of the setting. - Portraits and Sprites: What your characters wear is an important part of their culture, personality, and overall flavor. If Sacaean nomads wear furs and embroidered wool and Bern knights wear spiked plate armor, that says very telling things about their societies, daily activities, and the resources they command - all without ever needed to waste space in the text explaining that. That's all I can add about Fire Emblem world-building at the moment. I hope it has helped someone consider how to better create and use a custom setting in their game. Feel free to post more ideas or tips if you have them. Happy hacking!

That Young Archibald is adorable! Awesome sprite work. :) Also, seconding arachnidsGrip about more development between Ilanice and Amelia. They didn't have much background when they first appeared, so it's good to see them get some story love.

Gosh, I just can't get over that Erk. He looks amazing. The hair could use a little clean-up and there's overuse of the border color in the clothing shading, but overall he is just wonderful. :)

Hmmm, I see what you mean. Her defined lips give her an typical Fire Emblem mouth, so there's probably weirdness there, and I also wanted her mouth to open only slightly when she talks, which isn't usual either. I'll mess around with the frames and see if I can fix them up. Thanks, Seph! Thanks! :) Thanks Ecut! And definitely, haha. I knew I had to finish the crest and add more shading to the hair, but when I finally got to it, I ended up fixing almost everything to some degree. It still feels like some things could be improved - I'm not quite satisfied with the crest's trim and the part in her hair, for example - but it looks much better than it did. In the end, it's pretty fun to go back and touch up old work, and see just how much your technique and eye have progressed in the past year.

Wow - I love it! Your revamped splice looks awesome, Mariokirby. :) Your changes really refined the design and made his personality more readable. Great work! The only critique I can really offer is that the left half of the cloak (opv) looks bunched rather than draped. You also need a little more antialiasing on his armor trim, and to neaten up your AAing in general. It's not an image-killing problem, but it would help to smooth out some jaggedness. I don't agree with deranger about him being "old people skinny." Rather, I think his leanness accentuates his mean personality. His weight/build seems fine. Keep it up, MK! I'd love to see more custom work from you!

Shazam! Updates for Tuonela the Swordmaster! -> Appropriate, given that next month I'll have sprited her a year ago. Hard to believe it's gone by so fast - what the heck, 2011.

Dat thief! So excellent! Seriously, your new stuff looks great. I've always liked your designs. :)

Ohmuhgawsh, ponies! *freaks out* *breathes in* *breathes out* Ahem! These are really awesome, Kayle. Imaginitive designs that fit the characters, super-clean execution, and lovely shading and color choices. The shiny manes are my favorite parts. Also, Pinkie Pie in a top hat can't be beat! Do post more art whenever you have a chance. :)

Your Florina sketch is lovely, Popo! I really enjoyed watching your work process, too. You're a master at that pen tool. :)