Hello everyone, happy New Year and best wishes! 
Welcome to the second edition of the CCC focused on Original Characters!
If you haven’t seen the first edition and are intrigued, you can check it out here.
I’m very pleased with the number of participants and submissions in the previous round. I hope as many people will be interested and willing to participate in this one as well.
You have my deepest thanks.
This time, it will be about Mentors.
The rules of the Original Characters rounds are slightly different from the Fire Emblem ones, if you were already familiar with those.
You can read the rules in further detail below, but the main difference to keep in mind is that Characters must be fully original.
If you're new to the concept, click here to learn more about it
What is the CCC
The CCC is an art contest where the participants create portraits for various characters to expand the FE Fangame Essentials, a resource that compiles Fire Emblem-related assets, including portraits, battle animations, music, amongst others, to create Fire Emblem content or rom-hacking in general.
The artists may represent the characters following the round’s theme in any way they like.
For existing characters, they can be in their classic attire or have re-designs, including but not limited to de-ageing or ageing the characters, giving them new outfits or attributes, genderbending them, cosplaying them, etc, as long as they are recognisable and keep defining features of said characters.
This contest isn’t targeted towards a specific audience. Despite being a contest, it is very casual, and everyone is encouraged to partake in this contest, no matter their skill level and experience. The main goal is to have fun and create portraits for the Community to use and enjoy!
Rules
1.
All submissions to this contest will be F2E by default unless stated otherwise by the artist! This contest involves expanding the resources available for the Portrait Repository, but I understand not everyone participating wishes their work to be F2U or F2E.
2.
Artists may create custom battle animations, music, map sprites, or any form of art related to the featured characters, however, only posts with a portrait will be eligible for the vote.
3.
Artists may create an alternate outfit/design/etc for one or multiple characters, if they wish.
4.
Artists may submit multiple designs, if they wish. They will all count toward their one submission vote. (Voters will vote on all of the works they created at once)
5.
No pre-existing artwork! The point of this contest is to expand the repository. It would be unfair to compete against artwork that may have had several weeks or months of editing work put into it ahead of time.
6.
Eye/mouth frames are preferable but optional. They aren’t necessary, but it would be awesome if they were included!
7.
Characters must be fully original.
However, they can be inspired by pre-existing characters of any media, share certain features, if done by splicing, for instance.
8.
All characters must be sprited in GBA format!
(Hackbox size is not necessary)
(Halfbodies/fullbodies are authorised)
(Please try to keep the colour count at or below 16, that would be great.)
9.
Submissions must at least somewhat respect the theme of the current round!
10.
First Place picks three themes, which are groups or categories that include a variety of characters (such as classes, roles in the story, related characters, and archetypes…), and Second Place picks two other themes for the next round, then the community gets to vote among the 5 they prefer!
Previous rounds
Fire Emblem rounds
Round One - Anna, Jake
Round Two - Eirika, Ephraim
Round Three - Karel, Karla
Round Four - Hugh, Cath, Lysithea
Round Five - Nino, Jaffar, Sonya
Round Six - Larum, Elphin, Homer, Phina
Round Seven - Mia, Astram, Flavia
Round Eight - Lance, Alan
Round Nine - Lachesis, Larcei, Rutger
Round Ten - Athena, Marisha, Erik
Round Eleven - Zane, Arete, Klein
Round Twelve - Anna, Ryoma, Hinoka
Round Thirteen - Cecilia, Pent, Saleh
Round Fourteen - Michalis, Minerva, Maria
Round Fifteen - Palla, Catria, Est
Round Sixteen - Camilla, Elise, Felicia
Round Seventeen - Alear, Louis, Yunaka
Round Eighteen - Hector, Jahn, Idunn
Round Nineteen - Cherche, Libra, Olivia
Round Twenty - Hanon, Rutger, Sue, Uhai
Round Twenty One - Silvia, Lara, Nils, Ninian
Round Twenty Two - Dorothea, Annette, Marianne, Yuri, Constance
Round Twenty Three - Tanya, Rebecca, Neimi, Python
Round Twenty Four - Finn, Amelia, Berkut
Round Twenty Five - Merric, Delthea, Asbel
Round Twenty Six - Dieck, Guinivere, Saber, Celica
Round Twenty Seven - Camus, Perceval, Seth
Round Twenty Eight - Caeda, Nanna, Lilina, Tana
Round Twenty Nine - Arden, Oswin, Effie, Louis
Round Thirty - Hartmut, Barigan, Hanon, Elimine, Roland
Round Thirty One - Manaketes, Xane, Nagi, Naesala, Ash, Freya
Round Thirty Two - Galle, Eldigan, (FE8) Selena
Round Thirty Three - Elbert, Eleanora, Hector’s Mother, Hussar, Ionius IX, Sitri
Round Thirty Four - Bramimond, Niime, Canas, Katarina, Tharja
OC rounds
This month’s theme is mentors.
According to its definition, a mentor is a person who gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person, especially in a professional or academic context, over a period of time.
In Fire Emblem, there is a known “archetype” that fits this definition perfectly, the “Jagen Archetype”, named after the first character to fit said archetype.
/!\ Please remember that every archetype is a fan interpretation of characters who share either story or gameplay similarities throughout the games, and none of them have been agreed upon by the developers themselves. /!\
It’s probably the most common and well-known “archetype”, being a character that joins the group early in the game, and usually as the main Lord’s guardian or a mentor, lore-wise.
Generally already promoted, they have better base stats compared to most of the other playable characters available at that point.
Sometimes, they are further divided into two categories:
- Pure Jagen: Typically Older (> 45 years old) than most of the cast, Low Growth Rates
- Oifey: Slightly Older (25~30 years old, whereas the main character is usually around 15~20 years old), Medium/High Growth Rates
To not overcomplicate this, both are admissible, and that’s why I went with the term “mentor”, which is even broader, and thus, the character doesn’t need to be playable or appear too early in the story.
I want you to focus on their Design and Visual appearance, and put aside Gameplay and Story.
Of course, as per last time, they can be used for your personal rom-hack or other projects, but as stated before, as rule #5: “No pre-existing artwork”
It could be even fun to create the entire cast of characters of a rom-hack throughout the different rounds. If you participated before, the characters you’ll submit for this round don’t have to be related to the previous ones.
I’ll now showcase a few characters that are depicted as mentors in Fire Emblem, followed by a list of mentors in the series (it is non-exhaustive, I might have missed some), to give you ideas, but feel free to look for references from other media or rom-hacks to get a better understanding of the topic.
- Character 1: Jagen, Veteran Knight from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem and their remakes.
- Character 2: Oifey, Chalphy’s Tactician from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of The Holy War
- Character 3: August, Astute Tactician from Fire Emblem: Thracia 776
- Character 4: Cecilia, Mage General Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade
- Character 5: Titania, Mighty Mercenary from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Mentors to the main character:
- Jagen, mentor to Marth
- Malledus, mentor to Marth
- Mycen, mentor to Alm
- Nomah, mentor to Celica
- Oifey, mentor to Seliph
- Shannan, mentor to Seliph
- Lewyn, mentor to Seliph
- Finn, mentor to Leif
- Eyvel, mentor to Leif
- August, mentor to Leif
- Cecilia, mentor to Roy & Lilina
- Merlinus, mentor to Roy
- Marcus, mentor to Roy & Eliwood
- Seth, to Ephraim & Erika
- Duessel, to Ephraim
- Greil, mentor to Ike
- Titania, mentor to Ike
- Gunter, mentor to Corrin
- Gilbert, mentor to Dimitri
- Rodrigue, mentor to Dimitri
- Nader, mentor to Claude
- Emblem Marth, mentor to Alear
Mentors to other characters:
- Jeorge, mentor to Gordin
- Gordin, mentor to Ryan
- Julian, mentor to Rickard
- Wendell, mentor to Merric and Arlen
- Gotoh, mentor to Miloah and Gharnef
- Oifey, mentor to Diarmuid/Tristand & Lester/Deimne
- Shannan, mentor to Larcei/Creidne and Scathach/Dalvin
- Shannam, (unvoluntarily) mentor to Mareeta
- Ced, mentor to Asbel
- Galle, mentor to Zeiss
- Athos, mentor to Pent
- Pent, mentor to Erk
- Wallace, mentor to Kent & Sain
- Saleh, mentor to Ewan
- Shinon, mentor to Rolf
- Haar, mentor to Jill
- Greil, mentor to Zelgius
- Manuela, mentor to Dorothea
- Jeralt, mentor to Leonie
- Shamir, mentor to Cyril
I hope this will help!
The deadline is March 1st.
To not miss any future rounds, you can now join the CCC Discord Server, where I announce every new round, voting period and results.
You can also vote for your favourite submission on the round focused on Dark Magic Users here
If you have any further questions, please feel free to write them here or send me a message through Discord.
Have fun, everyone!