Zanryu

I’ve found deviantArt tends to be just as hard a sell in the past - I am in a few Discord servers now with some of the prominent spriters and hackers in the community now, so I’m not totally without an audience. I’m also active on FEU, but rarely swing by here anymore. I appreciate the compliment - I’ve been improving some since I posted Christina (red haired cav), working on a couple techniques and trying some new things as I go. I may have something to post here soon!

Wow, I just came through to look for an old friend’s thread and find a comment. Nice! This one is actually a ~20ish year old female, but she’s very much NOT feminine, hence the somewhat androgynous appearance. Thank you though for the comment! I’m rather used to people passing through without posting by now however - it’s one of the reasons I stopped spriting for 8 years.

Been working on a thing, and this is a pretty big milestone for me - still incomplete and will be returning to parts of the body for tweaks as I go forward, but for now, here she is. 100% custom, not a single borrowed pixel.

Well, been a while since I've posted here, huh? A couple things made for a hack. A thing for another hack. A thing... just because?

Still incomplete, but more progress!

Went through some old photos and found an old one of me and my brother-in-law from 2013, compared to me and my fiancée from our anniversary a few weeks ago. I feel like I've grown up so much in five years.

My pleasure! Sorry I can't be of more help, I never got into hacking myself, unfortunately.

Pretty sure you'd be able to implement third tiers via the trainee branches, but I'm not sure how much room there is for new data with FE8. However, FEXP is available to work with, though I dunno how well supported it is at this point - if you look into Fire Emblem Immortal Sword (FE7x) you can find info on FEXP there, as it was the original engine being used to create the project.

So I've done a bit more, still incomplete but coming along. Working with a lot of different ideas for the shading and finally getting somewhere I like!

Obligatory bathroom selfies are coming back, I swear.

So, I live once more, cheers to Integrity for getting access to my account back for me (damn you, defunct emails from my childhood!) I did a thing. It's incomplete, but it is a thing.

So as it stands, this is a simple intro to the prologue of a story I've been dreaming up for almost two years, and finally started putting it down. I don't know if I plan to post updates frequently, if at all, but I've yet to get any criticism from the few pairs of eyes who have taken a gander and it's bothering the hell out of me. Figure it's time to turn to the internet! Hope you guys could give me some critique!

Yay for fatherhood! Woo! And I'll definitely look into that; haven't died! Just got back to work this past week, got an Xbox One a few weeks ago and have loads of games to play at the moment (Fallout 4, Halo 5 and the whole Gears of War series to replay... yikes!), so I haven't been hitting the computer too much. At all, actually; not in over a week. I'll likely be putting Ellie on hold, I have a concept in mind for a new character!

My exact thoughts; I couldn't get the shading right or figure out a good way to continue any folds without making it look obnoxious and loose, so I sort of just left it as a place holder for the time being. Got an Xbox One the other day, so I've been a bit preoccupied, I'll get back to this some time soon!

Woo! Thanks for the great advice! Working off of Wendy's face made it a bit weird to find a good spot for different eyes - looks great that way! And it's my first shot at a half body so I'll definitely work on it some! I appreciate the assistance. :P And I also felt the breasts were a bit overdone, but I'll work on it! She's tiny to begin with, never even thought of binding her chest though. That's my oversight!

Thanks guys! :D And yes, I'm very much alive. Parenthood is a drain on time, but I'm off work for another week and a half, so it's not so bad. xD

I guess y'all are scared of commenting? I made some adjustments, and then tried something new... a BIG thanks to The Merc for showcasing his talent to the world, because if not for his work I wouldn't have had any idea where to start with this. After a good hour of studying the way he handles his half bodies, I think this has turned out half decent for my first draft!

You've definitely got that imagination I remember from years back, aha. I wish I could come up with so many ideas and have the desire to actually create them. Would love to see you branch away a tad from the Hyperions though - you've gotten a lot of experience just through the bloodline; time to surprise us. ;P

Aaaaaaand here's the rest! May tweak it some again, but for now I think it'll do. EDIT: I was wrong, I'm a dumb ass. I somehow totally forgot about one of the two straps that secure the pauldron, which goes over the right shoulder.

So it's been the LONGEST time since I've worked on anything myself, but I recently came up with a character to be used at FEP in the RPs there; between helping Truck with some constructive criticism and that, I've gotten the drive to make her mugshot. Obviously a work in progress; still have some shading to rework and the whole body to figure out, but it's going well! Her name is Ellie "Eli" Vael. She uses Eli with people she doesn't know, posing as a young boy, a prodigious hunter traveling from Bern to sell his wares and spread his name. She had a rough upbringing that ties into her choosing to pretend she's a boy, but that's not important. :P

These Fates portraits though man, damn! For the mug, the lower portion of the overcoat is great! The body still seems twisted too far towards the viewer. The collar of the overcoat could have stayed twisted towards us too - your call, but it added a sort of dynamic to the piece. As for the undershirts, they look better, but could still use some tweaking! The vest is also too sharp and angular. Nothing in reality when worn is a perfect 45 degree. :P And the armour - that still isn't right; I can't explain it much better than to check out some official work. Eliwood is a decent example, Klein as well.

Alright - let's get into this one. :P I love the structure of it, but there are issues all over the body; mostly in the angle, for one. It looks like the face is turned at maybe 30-40 degrees, whereas the body is aaaaalmost perfectly straight. You'll want to emphasize the angle with depth; the far shoulder should seem a tad smaller (1-3 pixels usually does the trick), but you also want it to be partially hidden by the body. Because the angle of the face isn't so extreme, it would be nothing major - but you still need to emphasize that. Darker shades on the far shoulder too are key. I also notice you DO have a few shades on the armour, but they're VERY hard to distinguish. Perhaps picking more contrasting shades to begin will help - but the way armour is shaded is VASTLY different from the rest of the things you'll have to shade. It's got to be more reflective - if you can find some work from The Blind Archer or Vamp, you'll be pleasantly surprised you'll have LOADS of references for their shading style. Vamp was especially good with the armour trims and intricacies, TBA NAILED the shading in all aspects; he once made a flawless Hilde from Soul Calibur. Definitely a piece I'd recommend studying if you can find it! Moving on - the coat is FAR too straight, and there's no real imagination to the way it falls. It sort of seems flat along with straight; also my BIGGEST issue myself. Eliwood's formal attire from FE7 is perfect for that; you could also check out Orson from FE8 and perhaps a few royals from the GBA games for examples on ways to shade the fabric in style. The vest and collar underneath also suffers from the same, one dimensional issue - characters like Glass show a great way to shade those sorts of parts with subtlety while still remaining clearly defined. The neck and face are quite well done, but I feel the shadows stretch across the face a LITTLE too far - the nose is going to cast a shadow to the far side of the face, but that's more or less where the shadow should stop being cast - from there you're working off the center point of the face, so it would make sense that the shadow would inch backwards a little since his face is straight; your first portrait was working with a severe angle so it worked a tad differently. Can't say much else aside from possible cleaning up the shades along the sideburns, it looks fairly rigid and blocky - softening that definition with lighter skin tones and shortening the shaded lines could help there. The hair is great! It's not without fault (could use a little more definition in the little details to add more depth to the style), but the only real suggestion I have is to possibly bring the shade back a bit; the face is shaded so far along because the natural curvature of the face will cast a shadow, but hair tends to work a little differently.

No problem at all! It's looking real sharp! It's of course, not perfect just yet, but it's well done! I'd suggest that if you don't feel like tweaking further, leave it be and come back to it after a year of practice and see what you can do THEN. It's a nice way to learn and gauge your improvement. :P I would go back every few years and reiterate my first ever original character (my online identity), and the improvements were stunning. From a modest, unspectacular Roy edit to an unfinished yet very neat "super splice", as an old friend of mine would say. :P

Nice! That's looking great! Last thing I can suggest is to shuffle the light spot of the far cheek bone over and maybe down a touch, add a little of that shading closer to the hair on her cheek, and make the shading under her fringe a bit less extreme. Ease into a smooth shadow using all the shades at your disposal, and with how short her fringe is there's no need to extend it THAT low. And maybe a liiiittle more shadow around her eye would work, at least where the socket would be, but nothing serious. Leaps and bounds with each update, my friend. Proud of you for listening well and taking the help! Good work!