Veron's Sprite Topic

[LordVeron]

I like to mess with FE sprites from time to time, so I'll just dump stuff that I've done in here.

This is one I did just a while ago. I may add him as a hack for FE8 if I ever learn how to do so, but for now this is good enough.

Feel free to praise or criticize. Or just look at it. I may even do requests if I feel up to it.

EDIT: Found some in my photobucket, I may as well upload them to see how far I've gone...

This is the earliest in my account. Obviously it's only a recolor, no splicing involved. This is around the time when I first started messing around with sprites from FE.

Another Ephidel recolor... what? I always thought this guy was awesome. It's too bad he was nothing more than an NPC.

I did these for some friends of mine, on my friend's long-dead FE forum, Realm of Renais. I really miss those days... </nostalgia>

I SPRITE FOR MY FRIENDS.

A raven laguz that I made. One of the first animations I did.

Moar stat sheets! I think these were for an RP or something...

And the most recent one I've done is at the top.

Edited November 8, 2009 by LordVeron

[LordVeron]

Veron's battle sheet (Shaman + Druid). I always thought a white Shaman would look interesting...

[Hero]

It looks like I made a pretty big post about this. You don't have to read it if you don't want to make any further edits to anything you posted here.

I could go into individual criticism of the older faces you posted, but I don't think that would accomplish much since your own skill has probably changed since then. Most of them, though, could be improved if you used different colors. A lot are either too bright, too washed out, or both. Several of them also use narrow shoulders for a large head, or broad shoulders for a small head.

As for the most recent, Veron, the largest area for improvement that I see is in the shadow the large hood casts over his face. I'm guessing it's a male character, since your username is LordVeron. First off, I think the brown color is too flat, and not dark enough to conceal an eye. I'd suggest either making the brown shade darker and using less of it, adding an intermediate shade between the brown and outline colors, or using the outline color for shading. I also think the color should be darker on the left side, where we can't see the eye, than on the right side where we can. Either that or show two eyes. The eye that is visible could also use more outlining, so that it stands out of the dark shades around it a bit better. Last, where we see the hair coming out on the left it seems to be coming out of his face. This should be easy to fix.

Moving on from that area, I think the scar on Veron's face is too thick and too regular, it's a bit more "anime" style than Fire Emblem portraits tend to be. You should check out the scars on other FE characters' faces for examples of how the developers handled this issue. You actually did a pretty good job with shading the creases in Veron's robe, which can be difficult with lighter colors, but there are two very minor points that caught my attention. The first is at the right corner of the front of the hood. I think that you should either use another shade here, or get rid of some of the outline. It looks out of place on a white hood. Second is the dark area that goes up and over his left shoulder. If the light is coming from the upper right, as it seems it is from how you did the hood, this area should be lighter. The dark stripe also is a bit crooked toward its left terminus.

The thing that stood out to me most about Veron's portrait other than the missing eye was the narrowness of his shoulders. From the battle sprite you showed and his hood we can see that he's wearing a pretty bulky garment, yet from side to side it's as narrow as some female characters with bare shoulders. As a guy wearing a bulky robe with a hood that size, Veron's shoulders should at least match the width of Ephidel's.

As for the statsheet, I don't have any criticism though I'm curious to know why Veron's max Con is so low. I forget whether that's normal.

Lastly, I have a question for the sprite sheet you posted: Have you tried just giving the original dark color to his magic casting effect? It would match the animation the spell itself has on the enemy and might contrast nicely with the white robes.

[LordVeron]

Well first off, thanks for the critique. I'm not going to bother on pointing out the older ones, since I don't really plan to do anything with them anytime soon. Now, moving on...

As for the most recent, Veron, the largest area for improvement that I see is in the shadow the large hood casts over his face. I'm guessing it's a male character, since your username is LordVeron. First off, I think the brown color is too flat, and not dark enough to conceal an eye. I'd suggest either making the brown shade darker and using less of it, adding an intermediate shade between the brown and outline colors, or using the outline color for shading. I also think the color should be darker on the left side, where we can't see the eye, than on the right side where we can. Either that or show two eyes. The eye that is visible could also use more outlining, so that it stands out of the dark shades around it a bit better. Last, where we see the hair coming out on the left it seems to be coming out of his face. This should be easy to fix.

I'll try to do what I can with the shadow, but you have to understand, if I want to use him in a ROM hack, my color palette will be limited to 16 colors only, including the background. (I'm still having problems with that. It's turning out to be really hard to fit in the 16-bits and still keep the intended color scheme.) I'll try to make it darker without looking too blocky, but I'll do my best. The hair, like you said, should be fairly easy to fix.

Although now that I think about it, perhaps I could just use hair to cover the area where the right eye is supposed to be... Well, I'll see how it goes.

Moving on from that area, I think the scar on Veron's face is too thick and too regular, it's a bit more "anime" style than Fire Emblem portraits tend to be. You should check out the scars on other FE characters' faces for examples of how the developers handled this issue. You actually did a pretty good job with shading the creases in Veron's robe, which can be difficult with lighter colors, but there are two very minor points that caught my attention. The first is at the right corner of the front of the hood. I think that you should either use another shade here, or get rid of some of the outline. It looks out of place on a white hood. Second is the dark area that goes up and over his left shoulder. If the light is coming from the upper right, as it seems it is from how you did the hood, this area should be lighter. The dark stripe also is a bit crooked toward its left terminus.

I'll see if I can narrow the scar a little to make it look more appropriate. Same goes for the shading... eh. I'll fool around with it and see what it gets me.

The thing that stood out to me most about Veron's portrait other than the missing eye was the narrowness of his shoulders. From the battle sprite you showed and his hood we can see that he's wearing a pretty bulky garment, yet from side to side it's as narrow as some female characters with bare shoulders. As a guy wearing a bulky robe with a hood that size, Veron's shoulders should at least match the width of Ephidel's.

It does seem a little to narrow, now that you mention it. I'll widen them a bit.

As for the statsheet, I don't have any criticism though I'm curious to know why Veron's max Con is so low. I forget whether that's normal.

I forgot what a normal Con was too. He's a lightweight spellcaster, so I just assumed he's light to carry...

Lastly, I have a question for the sprite sheet you posted: Have you tried just giving the original dark color to his magic casting effect? It would match the animation the spell itself has on the enemy and might contrast nicely with the white robes.

I can see what you mean, but the magic casting animation is meant to match color-wise to the colors of the Shaman casting it. Besides, I like how it turned out, considering he's supposed to be an ex-priest... it adds a bit of irony, I guess.

Edited November 9, 2009 by LordVeron

[LordVeron]

Mmkay, I made a few changes to Veron's portrait:

- No more scar. I just could find a suitable scar that I liked, so I just got rid of it. Looking at him now, he looks better, I think.

- Wider shoulders. It really does make a difference... Now he actually looks like a guy.

- Missing eye problem fixed. Hair fixes everything.

- Shading still sucks. Maybe I should find a good shading tutorial or something... >_>;

Comparison:

OLD:

NEW:

It still needs plenty of work, but I think this is one of my finer splicings.

Thoughts?

Edited November 9, 2009 by LordVeron

[Hero]

I don't know that you need to find a shading tutorial right now, you're fine in regard to it. Keep in mind that some original FE6 and FE7 portraits have pretty sloppily done areas themselves. There are some pixels I'd change in the new version because of the addition of the extra hair.

I'm not sure I totally sympathize with the limited number of colors. I agree that it doesn't seem likely you'll be able to put another tone between the brown skin and the outline, but I do think you could add another shade of color for the cloth by using the lightest shade in the hair. This would be useful in the corner of the hood that I mentioned, and also on the left side of the sprite where there's a similar contrast between light gray robe and outline.

As for the hair itself,I would personally change its shape and/or make it shorter since I think it looks too "emo" right now, but that's a judgment call.

So other than working on the shading on and around where you put hair in and the two areas with the outline on a light color, I think you've made a pretty polished product.

[LordVeron]

Hmm. I like the hairstyle the way it is right now, but depending on if it still looks right after I tweak it a little, I may or may not change it. As for being emo... well, he is a Shaman, but it could always be a lot worse. In any case, I'm satisfied with the hair.

And you know what, I don't feel like limiting it to 16 colors anymore. I tried, but it's just not worth it, unless there's some magic program that allows more than 16-bits to be put into a game.

Also, I found those spots you thought I should recolor and fixed them, plus did a little extra shading around the hair.