FE Portraits

Projects Concepts
1

Hey guys, I’m new to FEUniverse, and to pretty much everything from Splicing portraits to make portraits to creating custom sprites/animations. So basically new to the whole ROM hacking thing. FE7 was my very first game, and after playing Awakening and Fates, I kind of miss the old GBA styled Fire Emblem games. I’m planning on making my own hack even though I know nothing about it. I was going to learn how to use FEXP but I see many people recommend waiting for the FEXNA by yeti to come out so as of right now, I’m currently working on:
1-Plot
2-Character Portraits
3-Custom animations/Sprites

So by the time FEXNA is out, I’ll have multiple components for my project done already. I’ve got some of the plot done but decided to learn how to splice character mugs, so check out my work so far. Any critique is welcomed!

https://gyazo.com/cb83dd1ec67885811ccea92c7bb2ddd2

For this character, I spliced Astore’s(FE6) hair onto Dieck’s(FE6) face, then I added Marcus’s(FE7) little goatee onto the chin. After that, I recolored the head and spliced it onto Astore’s body(It took me a while to decide which body to use which is why I decided to recolor his head first), and recolored it afterwards.

Edit:
-2 Portraits done with the help of NICKT!

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Could you upload them at normal size instead of blown up?
Also, you can chuck []img[] tags around your image to make it appear without having to click to view it.

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discourse can actually just let you copy and paste images and their will upload.
its pretty dope

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I suppose old habits just die hard…

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@NICKT Sorry I’m still new to this whole thing :stuck_out_tongue:


hopefully I did this right. If not, http://imgur.com/gX5YV9q.

I’ve gotta head to class so I’ll fix it when I get back, thanks for the replies!

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Alrighty.
A couple of duplicate shades. If you look through the neck area you’ll notice you have several colours that look very similar but aren’t the same.
Not sure if you know, but I’ll state it nonetheless, FE-GBA has a colour limit of 15, with the sixteenth being the background colour for transparency. You mentioned FEXNA which won’t have the colour limit but you’ll want to hone down on it for style and aesthetic points, plus it helps with keeping it being a pain to recolour.

You also have a similar issue with the cloak in that a couple colours haven’t been changed in certain parts, like you missed part of the recolouring.
The neck-seam comes more or less to personal taste but I prefer thinner lines rather than the thick and muscular lines like on the three you’ve spliced from.
Dieck, the middle character however, I personally feel has very dark features, and by that I mean he uses a lot of the fourth and fifth skin shade in his face. I feel you could probably get away with changing up the eye to make it use less of the fifth shade except for defining lines.

There’s about a 2 or 3 pixel line on his beard where he’s missing an outline.

The ear is filled with hair colour, losing it’s definition and inner shaping.

The shoulder pad is also reverse lighted, where it’s shadows are brighter than the top of the pad.

The shape of the hair worked for Astor(?)'s angle but doesn’t for Dieck’s, so I’d recommend adding in a tuft on the top left to balance it out or use a different hair-piece.

His inner eye is a pixel too high for the facial angle. Not too sure if it’s an issue with Dieck as I didn’t check but either way it’s in need of a touch-up, just move it down a touch and fix.

When you fix all the colour issues, it gives you an extra few colours, so you can colour the pauldron a different colour. If you forego a white or light blue (which I use for eyes when I have a spare) you could also add a third shade to the cloak.

Now, just in case that all seems like a lot, have this and use it as a guide.

Disclaimer: I’m not the best, nor do I claim to be. I’ve just been at this a long, long, long time.
I also have a collection of my FE mugs in a zip over on Serenes, if you ever need a resource or reference I’m sure there’d be something in there. I’m in a process of updating them though, so for the latest just pop into my gallery on this forum.

P.S. Now that I look at it, I should have also moved the widow’s peak over so that it sits in the middle of his forehead.
But that’s just the nature of it, you’ll always notice new things that you can touch up, art’s never finished, as they say…

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If you’re dead-set on using FEXNA, then make sure to use the extra work-space you have when it comes to portraits.
Feel free to use my template here, which I’ve been using for my projects. It’s got multiple sections for different expressions/emotions saving you from having to have multiple character sheets for things other than outfit and plot changes.
Click Here

They’re not the best names for each box but in general it should give you enough expressions to convey all you’d need to in a conversation. The mug workspace I believe is the dimensions Yeti said were the largest allowed before it broke the boundaries on a couple player menus where the mug would show. He said however that because enemies never were seen in these menus that they could be larger, so keep that in mind.

The boxes below each face are for the frames, left to right goes:
Open, Half, Closed.
With the top 32x16 boxes being for eyes and the lower being for the mouth.
I don’t believe FEXNA required you to use the 8x8 grid for alignment but it never hurts just to keep it easy like that.

The four longer bars down the bottom are for battle expressions. Of which I don’t remember what they were so I’ve left them blank so far. The bottom 32x32 box is the mini.

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Hey @NICKT, yours looks really good compared to mine! Thanks for all the input, I’ll probably start it over from scratch again. I went back and forth with MSPaint and GIMP2, what software do you use? If you don’t mind me asking.

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I use paint, though I may try and find something like the older paint in the future due to issues I have with the cursor in the current paint.
I also use Usenti for precise framing and palette-work.

Also, 'cause I found them:
Splicing Tutorial. !old

The Resource topic in general is a pretty nifty place to look 'round. You’ll find my collection there along with some other things from forum-goers.

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Hey @NICKT, I started it again, it started to overwhelm me so I decided just to take your made one, thanks by the way. I made another character to try to take it slowly, this character takes pieces from 3 character who should be the same angle , so it should look better. I tried to keep it at only 16 colors(including the transparent, so 15). Do you mind checking it out for me?

-Uses Heath’s(FE7) Face
-Roland’s(FE7) Hair
-Karel(FE7) Body with some minor adjustments, like adding a shirt.

Thanks!

1 Like
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For the most part, this is simpler and pays off a lot better because of it.
Overall it’s a solid piece.
An issue comes in where due to combining palettes some parts, like the collar, lose shading in the process.
The main problem however is making the parts come together with aliasing. Tiny bits of the fringe are cut short and needed very minimal shading fixes, along with the neck-shirt seam.
You’re also using the FE8 outline colour which only really looks good when used with FE8 colours that are more saturated.


I made a couple little other touches including the above mentioned.
I also included a string-tone palette, where each colour blends into the next. So the collar palette then goes into his shirt and then into his hair.
But yeah, as you can see, ultimately I did a lot less with this one. You can still see where the parts came from but for starting out it’s a solid entrant.

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Sweet, thanks for the help lately @NICKT! I’ll probably keep on posting her and asking questions if you don’t mind. Is it a good idea to blend fe8 with fe6 and fe7? Since you said the color palettes don’t mix well? How long does it take for you to make a new character? That second one I made took me 3-4 hours to get things the way I liked. Nonetheless, I find this to me an excellent time killer, and it’s been pretty fun. I can’t wait til I’ve got a whole cast ! :slight_smile: Do you know how tough it is to make animations for combat? Custom animations, like making whole new classes and minor changes like adding hair to a Sprite? Thanks again man!

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You can mix FE6/7 parts with FE8, just make sure to recolour them to a single game’s palette.
Lately if I plan out a splice like you do, I’d recommend even just recolouring all the sprites before you start splicing, so all the parts would already be the same colours.

I honestly haven’t made a new character in months, maybe even years. I’m still working from sprites I made years ago, just constant edits and updates…
It takes me probably the same amount of time, give or take an hour. But in the long run it’s probably a lot longer with the amount of times you’ll go back to it later and just fix up a tiny thing.

As for animations, I’ve tried in the past but I could never get it right.
Key frames are easy enough but for the most part the difficulty lies in getting it all to look fluid.
Though lately, a couple of people have been making 3D animations and then using that as a base to sprite on top of to make sure their animations are smooth, to some amazing results.

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@NICKT
Finished another portrait, although it is pretty basic. Any tips on how to give her a older face? Maybe around 20’s? It is pretty basic though.

-Hair and earings from Eleanora(FE7)
-Face from Louise(FE7)
-Outfit from Lyn(FE7)

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her face looks like 20s
you’re referencing louise and eleanora who are both older fe characters.
sharper jaws, smaller eyes are good ways to make a character older looking.
also shading beneath eyes helps too

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Hey @NICKT, I took a shot at a more complex portrait after the basic one of the woman. What are your thoughts on this one? The character isnt meant to be big bodied like, say, Fargus. The character does have flaws but I don’t relaly know how to deal with them/how to touch up the character.

-Uther(FE7) Face
-Rath(FE7) Bandana
-Douglas(FE6) Beard, with modifications made
-Geese(FE6) Outfit

Also, I was trying to figure it out on my own, but alas, it looked weird when I tried it. Is there a way to put this guy’s head on the outfit below? (Its Lloyd’s from FE7). Thanks!

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my advice for your portraits is to study human faces, whether you sketch, draw, or keep doing more portraits, eventually you’ll understand when a certain feature just doesn’t feel right. it’s all about proportions between the features of the face. the smallest detail can make or break a portrait. our brains are designed to recognize faces so keep plugging away until you dont get that feeling anymore. thats how i always done it.

for your most recent portrait, i think it looks fine since you say he isn’t meant to be big boned. his shoulders seem a tad small for his head or his head is a tad big for his body, but thats just me. the beard doesn’t really work in my opinion. the orientation of the bandanna and the beard makes him look like a FE santa claus to me, if thats what you were going for then great!

i like your portrait of the female, its a portrait i’d actually use in my hack if you made it a community asset. what i get from her is that shes either a traveler, hence the robe, or shes some sort of religious figure, or maybe even a noble/royal trying to hide their fancy clothes while on the run.

for things to spiff up portraits, i basically just think of who i am creating, what his personality is like, whats their favorite color, maybe the color scheme could be a gag between two characters, little things like that. maybe he’ll have scars to tell of past battles, or a really weird looking jacket to tell the audience that hes from a certain part of the continent, same with skin colors. when creating portraits, just think of what you want to create, because its whatever you want it to be. and I think that’s the best feeling in the world to be able to choose and put together something from scratch.

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I’m not sure what a community set is, but if you want to use it, I won’t mind :smiley:
But yeah, I was planning on using her as a traveler with a religious background, hence the white. Glad you could depict it!

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Made another female
-FE7 Characters
-Lyn’s face and some portion of hair
-Leila’s hair pieces
-Ursula’s body
-Serra’s pigtails

thoughts?

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I like it, makes me think of an eccentric magic user. Like the crazy lady from Harry Potter that was on Lord Voldemort’s team, Beatrix or something? I think its the hairstyle.

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