I'm making new "promotions" for Fire Emblem Fates Characters

[SMinairo]

Due to various reasons, which range from the indignation I felt when I discovered years ago that "Valla Noble" didn't exist, to me wanting to improve my designing skills, passing by me liking how Fates, unlike awakening for example, have official promotions for (most of) the first generation, I've decided to make designs for potential "promotions" of said first generation.

I probably won't be constant, I don't even know if I'll finish this, but I might as well have them all together here.

So, to begin with, here's Valla Noble Corrin:

 

Opinions, feedback and critique are all welcomed, and though I have to say in advance that I won't change the designs once I post them, I will take into consideration comments for future designs.

Edited August 31, 2023 by SMinairo

[Jotari]

Well first off, great drawings.  But secondly, what do you mean Awakening characters don't have official classes? They all come in a base class of some sort.

[SMinairo]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well first off, great drawings.  But secondly, what do you mean Awakening characters don't have official classes? They all come in a base class of some sort.

Thanks! You are right, I was in a hurry and worded it horribly, I wanted to say that they don't have canon promotions, I'll edit it.

[Jotari]

17 minutes ago, SMinairo said:

Thanks! You are right, I was in a hurry and worded it horribly, I wanted to say that they don't have canon promotions, I'll edit it.

Okay, I see, but I'm still a bit confused. If that's the case...then why is this a Fates Thread? Wouldn't you be designing promotions for the Awakening characters instead then? And if not, why even bring up Awakening in the first place?

[SMinairo]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Okay, I see, but I'm still a bit confused. If that's the case...then why is this a Fates Thread? Wouldn't you be designing promotions for the Awakening characters instead then? And if not, why even bring up Awakening in the first place?

I see that maybe I should have left creating the thread for a moment when I had more free time and explain it better, there's a lot about how and why I began this that I simply left out because I didn't think anyone would care haha.

The shortest answer to "why fates?" would be that I simply like canon "things" in general, for example I've never had a Chrom who is not a Great Lord, or an Edelgard who isn't an Emperor, it simply doesn't feel right. So when I got the idea to make more personal designs for some promotions, imagining, for example, Laslow as a hero was more interesting than vaike as a hero or a warrior. I guess you could say that for most characters the "canon" one is obvious, but the lack of confirmation simply makes me less interested, and you never now when there will be an unexpected one like Peri as a Great Knight or Selena as a Bow Knight.

You might also be thinking "if you like canon stuff why are you making your own designs?"... and tbh it is pretty ironic lmao, but the truth is that the idea has been changing for a while. First I saw Bow Knight Selena and thought about drawing her with other colors since her clothes' canon colors are usually not red. Then I thought about making a drawing of everyone in their canon promotion as is, because while everyone has a general idea of the designs the resolution of the 3DS wasn't that great, and cipher doesn't always show the full body. Lastly I saw Peri, who has a unique design as a cavalier, and thought that it's a shame that 1) she is the only one with a unique design, and 2) she loses it as a Great Knight. Now how much I want to change the designs kinda depends on the character.

As for why I brought up Awakening, it's simply because I tend to overthink stuff, so in my mind when I wrote that Fates has canon classes I thought "wait, technically Three Houses has canon classes, and while I haven't played them yet I'm pretty sure the radiant cast also have canon classes at some level, better be safe than sorry". I could have said "unlike Sacred Stones" just as easily.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

23 hours ago, SMinairo said:

So, to begin with, here's Valla Noble Corrin:

Neat design! I quite like how the blue, white, and gold all go together. Very intricate design. For a second, I was gonna congratulate you on making "functional female armor", until I saw the thigh gap. But hey, that's what Fates is all about!

Do you know what weapon types and skills this "Valla Noble" class would have? Or are you mostly just focused on the aesthetics of each class?

[SMinairo]

On 8/31/2023 at 11:50 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Neat design! I quite like how the blue, white, and gold all go together. Very intricate design. For a second, I was gonna congratulate you on making "functional female armor", until I saw the thigh gap. But hey, that's what Fates is all about!

Do you know what weapon types and skills this "Valla Noble" class would have? Or are you mostly just focused on the aesthetics of each class?

Thanks! I was going to cover her thights, but since I was trying to create a paralel to the Nohr/Hoshido noble designs and both of them have it... for future ones I'll probably go for thights like Brave Camilla if they have thigh gaps.

As for the weapons and skills, I'm overall more focused on the aesthethics, but in this particular case I did think a bit about weapons. In universe I'd like to see them using dragon fang more casually instead of as a skill, and the better weapon for that would be fists. In game, since Fates obviously doesn't have fists, I think empowering a bit his dragonstone abilities would be a good idea. Maybe make them capable of attacking from distance with a certain unused animation.

[SMinairo]

I've been busy (and tbh I've been pretty low in fire emblem hype lately), but I finally decided to continue this, hopefully from now on I'll post at least once a month.

This time is Corrin Rider Azura(?)

                                                               

I was inspired by this image from the artbook and kinda wanted to make a serious version of it lmao.

                                                                                    

I have more (and better) ideas for Azura I'll probably draw down the line, but this will be it for now for her haha.

[SMinairo]

This month promotion is Felicia!

I'm calling this class "Head Maid" and design wise it's obviously a mix of the maid and butler classes.

Since I'm making this for the sake of improving my skills in character design (or more specifically their clothes lmao) I'd like to have your opinions on certain aspects.

First of all, does she still look like Felicia? I tried to make her feel a bit older, but I fear I might ended up changing her too much.

Next are the lipstick and glasses. For the former, which color do you prefer? I came up with the blue/green one while thinking about a post Birthright setting, as a way to remember Flora, while pink one would work for the rest of routes, but which one would you choose if there was only one? And do you think the glasses suit her?

Finally, I would like to ask for ideas for Jakob. I don't think the idea of mixing the two uniforms sounds as interesting with the male model as a base.

Feel free to ignore the questions though haha.

[SMinairo]

This time was Jakob's turn as Great Butler.

If I keep doing these I'll stop drawing them in order. I wanted to do each "faction" in order, but I'm not particularly interested in the ones that always join Corrin and it's making drawing them boring, especially since I don't have all that much time now.