So its been a month, was sitting on a artist block for a bit due to some self imposed restrictions on the next portrait, plus getting carried away with some other games. (Note to self, playing battle passes on three games (Rivals, League and Diablo 4) eats a lot of time). In other news AQ Worlds Infinity’s Alpha was launched so in a sort of commemoration of that here is the next portrait.
As for what is coming up next, I’ve had flashes of some things I want to draw, but it sorta has to hit at the time I’m capable time, energy and enthusiasm wise to do it. Watching the Summer Games Fest and Sony State of Play have been fun. Looking forward to some games from there and then there is an Xbox showcase with a Gears of War one following that up soon too. Also there is Star Fox coming out soon as well. Maybe something from all of these may strike me. Or maybe something I’m playing, who knows.
I’ve updated the Non Fire Emblem Properties (Other Games) post with the below entry under F2E - Other Game Franchises (Artix Entertainment - Adventure Quest - Valencia Surehunter)
Another Adventure Quest character, this time one that originates from the OG (although she does appear as far as I’m aware in the other games set in that universe). A lot of Adventure Quest main NPCs are a bit tricky to draw because most of the time their more detailed arts are from the original Adventure Quest where all characters are pretty much facing the PC front on. That and their redesigns and updates from other titles also tend to change some design elements of them too. This Valencia is largely based on the original one, but turned to face the 3/4 angle that the GBA FE portraits tend to do, so that was a bit tricky to visualise. I did originally also have her overtop corset thing in here as well, but it looked a bit awkward not being high enough to really be a part of the portrait so I took it out. I’m also mixed on how her hand turned out (it is kind of iconic to her pose) so I have a handless alt available too. The main reference I used for her hair this time round was a key art for AQ3D Guilds.
Alright here is another Advance Wars character. My favourite Blue Moon CO. Wonder what to draw next. Here is to hoping that there is another Nintendo Direct soon, I feel like we haven’t really heard anything about Fortune’s Weave since its announcement and I think it was supposed to come out this year. As for announcements made so far these past two months I’m excited for, they’re; Star Fox, Dynasty Warriors 3 Remastered, Gears of War E Day, Street Fighter 6 Fighter Pass 4, Fable, Halo Campaign Evolved, Gundam: Rogue Orbit, FF7 Revelations (although I still gotta play through the Remake Trilogy) and Resident Evil: Veronica. Still lets see, what else is yet to come.
I’ve updated the Non Fire Emblem Properties (Other Games) post with the below entry under F2E - Other Game Franchises (Nintendo - Advance Wars - Grit)
The Sniper CO, ex Orange Star now Blue Moon, Grit. Interestingly his design has had a few changes when Advance Wars became an international title. His original Japanese design always wore a Cowboy brimmed style hat, however when he made it overseas it was changed for a different style hat. He wouldn’t get his cowboy hat internationally until Dual Strike. Not entirely sure why. Anyhow He was always going to be one of the more complex characters to draw due to his hat. So I decided to go with is slight more cartoony proportioned look from WayForward’s Reboot Camp as the main basis for this one. I may go back maybe and do a Hat extension version, but I’m pretty happy overall with how it all fitted into the hackbox at base. His WayForward design for some reason also has him chewing on some wheat so I did add a wheat variant as well to his portraits, but couldn’t fit into mouth box enough to lower and raise it with the talking frames so it may look odd when he speaks. As for his Fire Emblem Alt, he needed to be a Sniper and I felt that Awakening Sniper look probably suited him best (Three Houses looked pretty simple and Fates looked a bit too Japanese).
Another impressive work. I don’t usually comment, but I needed to congratulate you for your hard work and the amount of high-quality portraits you constantly produce.
I recently played the Advance Wars Remake, Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, which covers the first two games, and I would love to see the other COs at some point.
I’ve seen you already cover Andy, Sami, Eagle, Kanbei, and Lash on top of Grit.
You probably already have ideas on who to do next and what FE class you should convert them to, yet allow me to share my thoughts, in case you needed inspiration.
Max seems obvious amongst the remaining major characters; he would be a fighter.
Olaf is a bit tougher. His power is making the terrain Snowy, and while it can happen in the GBA Fire Emblem, none of the classes excels in that weather.
Considering his build, and one of the early missions where he is particularly threatening with his tanks, I suppose Armor knight would make sense.
Considering he is also a tutorial adversary in the first game, armour knights are often early game bosses, brigands more often, but it would be best suited for another character.
Colin is defined by his youth and lack of experience, so a trainee class would make sense. Perhaps a pupil would fit best if he had a skill; it would definitely be Fates Merchant’s Spendthrift.
Drake specialises in naval units, which aren’t really a thing in Fire Emblem. The closest we have are pirates, able to walk on water, and it works, because his original look in the Japanese version portrays him in an outfit reminiscent of pirates, and I believe it is said he used to be a pirate before becoming a Green Earth general.
Jess isn’t easy as well. If Eagle reigns supreme in the sky and Drake in the sea, she is the best on land. Considering she boosts vehicles like tanks, that have high mobility, a cavalier would make sense. But tanks also translate well into armour units as well, so perhaps she could be both as a Great Knight, a continuation of both class lines.
Sonja is all about intel, and her power is about seeing well in the fog; it really translates well to Fire Emblem thieves, even though she doesn’t seem to fit this class too much. However, since Gold/Yellow Comet is heavily inspired by Japan, and you made Kanbei a samurai, using a hosidian class, rather than its more usual equivalent swordmaster, Sonja could be a ninja, or I suppose a kunoichi would be more accurate.
Sensei uses the best flying units, so he would be in a flying class, but Eagle already is a wyvern rider, which makes a lot of sense, so perhaps following the same logic as Sonja, he would use a Hoshidian class and be a Sky/Pegasus knight, or even a Kinshi knight.
Flak/Helmut is another tutorial adversary, this time in the second game. His personality and build really echo those of barbarians/brigands in Fire Emblem. His Super CO power is literally named “Barbaric Blow” in the English version, so it works wonderfully well, on top of prioritising strength over reliability.
Adder would have worked really well as a dark mage, with his sinister look, but Lash already has that class. Nothing would prevent you from doing the same class line twice, but I guess having diversity would be better. But Lash was depicted as the Awakening version of that class; perhaps he could portray the more classic appearance of that class. Otherwise, I think he could work well as a corrupt priest, or considering Fates’ classes are on the table, I guess I could see him as a Butler as well.
Hawke/Maverik would probably work best in the general class. It would conflict with Olaf being in that class line as well, but Hawke reminds me a lot of Murdock from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade and Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, so I can only see him as a general.
Sturm would be in a magic armoured class. I can only imagine him as such. So, the baron class from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War or perhaps another equivalent of final bosses’ exclusive classes, such as King, Emperor, would work as well.
As mentioned at the beginning of my message, I’m only familiar with the first two entries of this series, and so far, you’ve also only done COs from those games, so I only suggested those, but I know that later there are more characters, like Colin’s sister Sasha, or I didn’t mention the COs outside of the Campaign mode, Nell and Hachi.
Thanks to anyone who went through reading this long, blathering message.
I think I’ll take my time and think about the classes for each character if/as I do them. However the write up is helpful for thinking about them. (I have some ideas for how some characters may look now, and Sensei sounds fun to do (and complicated)).
I honestly had no idea there was a direct coming, nor that it would have news on Fire Emblem so in celebration for all that coincidence and exciting news and also maybe a little of my overzealous financial decisions on pre purchasing the collectors edition already, I have drawn Anna who was also shown on twitter. I have also re named the FE 18 section to the FE Dagdan saga as we now have some more background on the game. It is kinda still in Fodlan, but I think its set far enough away that it can fall into the same separation as Awakening and Echoes/Gaiden is from the Akaniean saga games.
Even though the hype levels I felt were lower overall for a Nintendo Direct (nothing like the ol Smash days). I actually have quite a few more titles in there I’m looking forward to. If the KH collection aren’t on game key cards and have actual data on them cartridges I may consider picking them up to replay again, maybe the same for the FFX Remaster collection (not shown in the direct). There is obviously Xenoblade Genesis and I may pay for the upgrades for XC 1 - 3 (still kinda need to play through the XC 1 remaster and would like to replay XC 2 with a less laggy experience). I’ll probably pick up KH 4 on Switch 2 as well (even though this one is highly likely to be a game key card), then I’d have played KH on all 3 major companies (KH 1 - 2 on PS2, KH 3 on Xbox One and then KH 4 on Switch 2 (I did play 4 Handheld titles on their respective consoles too)). I’d also like to pick up the OOT remake, considering I’ve never actually owned it and played it proper. Also would like to tryout Duskbloods and see if I enjoy it, I really liked how Nightreign turned out so I have some belief in Fromsoft to cook and trust for them to try something new. Also still waiting for Star Fox later this month and if I have time I may pick up Metaphor: ReFantazio since I’ve only heard good things about it.
I’ve updated the main post with the below entry under F2E - Fire Emblem (FE Dagdan Saga - FE Fortune’s Weave - Anna)
So as part of Fortune’s Weaves announcements in the June Direct, Anna’s portrait was added to twitter. So I thought as a celebration to draw Anna. This I think is the 5th variant after; Heroes, Awakening, Awakening Merchant and Fates. I also think with every one done this is the best one i’ve done yet. I feel like I got the colours down pat nicely, the only thing I didn’t really fit well was the gold inner neck piece and the orange strap across her collar, but I felt they were unnecessary to try and fit into the portrait. I really like how her hair turned out and the colours were nice. I originally tried to get 3 tones for the white, but ended up having to sack the lightest white and instead use her skin tone which is pretty pale anyway and note that noticeable as a replacement. I needed that extra colour for the brown used in her gold parts, otherwise using the more red maroon tones in her skin didn’t quite look right. I have her original winking look as she is portrayed in her portrait art in Fortune’s Weave and one with both eyes open plus handless variants of each.
This portrait; Asemu Asuno is my favourite Gundam Age character. He represents the story trope of hardwork trumps talent, fate/destiny and super powers. In Gundam terms, his father Flit is a Amuro equivalent who grew hardened by the war in the first generation of Age and developed into the first X-Rounder (Newtype; essentially a psychic evolved human with super precognition, enhanced spacial awareness and reflexes) Ace for the Earth Federation. Asemu is not that, he has the pressure of being the son of the first chosen one essentially and turns out he lacks the natural talent his father had and did not inherit X-Rounder genes (so he’s an Oldtype: regular human). Asemu is interesting in that he is sort of written like Shinn from Destiny, except if he was given a better environment and if he lacked the series super powers and then grows into Athrun from Destiny (except without super powers). Despite this, he ends up being the main character who shoots down the major antagonist Aces from all 3 generations (Desil Galette (AGE 1 and 2, Zehart Galette AGE 2 and 3). Through sheer grit, experience and determination he out pilots them and beats them. Encouragement from his mentor, who tells him that relying on the hope of growing X-Rounder abilities or being the son of the previous war hero is silly and that he should try to be his own best pilot, a Super Pilot. Then he gets a kick ass theme song and proceeds to out pilot his antagonists (an Psychotic X-Rounder with no morals and essentially the Char Aznable of AGE). Whats crazier in AGE generation 3 he wins essentially against a Chars Counter Attack equivalent mobile suit (Legalis is an End of Series Gen 3 suit that is technically above pretty much everything else in AGE gen 3) in a suit from essentially Zeta (the Dark Hound is a sort of cobbled together repaired Gundam AGE 2). In short he is a Super Pirate badass.
So I’ve now ended up doing most portraits I said I’d do back at the end of April (an Advance Wars CO (Grit), an Adventure Quest character (Valencia), Touching Up Brady from Awakening and Asemu Asuno from Gundam Age). I suppose all that is left on that list maybe another OC, which I was eyeing up some design ideas (mainly hair styles). I do find that hairstyles are usually for me a big thing that prompt ideas for OCs, but not exclusively. Inspiration can strike from anywhere, I’ve had ideas as well looking at some Mecha as well and translating some of their designs into some more human style armour ideas too. Or you know just general character clothing and armour could be inspiring too.
I’ve also slightly touched up my Radiant Dawn Ike’s because their eyes were bugging me.
I’ve updated the main post with the below entry under F2E - Fire Emblem (FE Tellius Saga - FE Radiant Dawn - Hero and Vanguard Ike)
I’ve updated the Non Fire Emblem Properties (Non Game Franchises) post with the below entry under F2E - Non Fire Emblem (Non Game Franchises - Gundam - Gundam Age - Asemu Asuno)
My favourite protragonist from Gundam Age. This is Asemu Asuno’s Gen 3 “Captain Ash” persona (he does have a Earth Federation look at the start of Gen 3). His Captain Ash look I’m guessing is inspired by Space Captain Harlock and I think he is probably the coolest looking protagonist in that series. Because the similarites with Harlock, people in the fandom joke that his self announced title and catch phrase is Super Pirate (in actuality he is dubbed a Super Pilot). Despite being the same blonde used by Diana from Symphony of War (which means I get to cut 1 hair tone) his clothing still ended up using a lot of two tones. Sometimes I find it hard to translate anime hair to Fire Emblem GBA styles (which is funny considering Fire Emblem itself is very anime) and Asemu’s messy hair is pretty hard and probably the main thing I’d revisit for this portrait. Because it is this Sandy blonde it also makes it hard to colour it against his skin too, which is most awkward around his eyes and his scar.
So it has been a while since I’ve drawn my Smash Brothers main and THE main character of Fire Emblem. I really like how this one turned out and just felt sorta like I needed to draw another Fire Emblem character and thought who better than Marth.
Its also the first time I’ve updated the observation only post in a while with adding my Marth spriting legacy there as well (only the formatted/latest Marth is F2E, all the older ones are not). So that was neat to do as well.
As for what is next, maybe an OC. We’ll see, Star Fox comes out this week and then the following week is going to be busy for me so I’m not sure I’ll have time to work on anything for a little bit.
I’ve updated the main post with the below entry under F2E - Fire Emblem (FE Archanea Saga - Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon/New Mystery - Marth)
So this is the 4th time I’ve attempted Marth and probably the best he has turned out. While I like Daisuke Izuka’s designs and style, I wanted to do something different since the 2nd version of Marth I did was based on his cover art for New Mystery on the DS. I also didn’t want to base it on his Heroes art by Sachiko either or his OG art so I looked around for ideas and found the cinematic slides from New Mystrey and decided to use them as a reference. The colouring scheme was based on a mix of his Fates, New Mystrey and Smash colours. Interestingly due to his red gem I was restricted on clothing, trimming and jewelery colour tones so almost everything is usually one tone short of what I’d usually prefer (I usually prefer 3 tones for most things, jewelery, metallic and trimming colours are usually 4 tones). However I think they all turned out well with some creative balancing. I wasn’t 100% settled on his eyes so there are 2 versions with only slight variations. I also wanted to make his Lodestar outfit from FE Warriors, which in itself was also another challenge due to again the tone thing, however it also turned out pretty well.
I’ve also updated the Observation Only post with the below entry under Observation Only (Fire Emblem - Marth Spriting legacy)
So Marth, my introduction into Fire Emblem, ever since he was my main on Melee. I’ve drawn Marth only 4 times in my spriting career, but they’ve all been pretty spaced out.
Marth 1: was made around early ages in my spriting career (2007) and the internet was a pretty youngish place back then and forums were pretty abundant. I swear there were Fire Emblem forums galore then. This was mainly a splice with only the gem being custom.
Marth 2: This was made around when New Mystery was released (2010) and the artwork was coming out of our then first avatar Kris. I thought I had improved a bit since I first attempted Marth and tried doing Daisuke’s design from the cover art.
Marth 3: This was made around Marth’s reveal for Super Smash 4 (2013 - 2014 (I don’t have an accurate date for this one) I tried making a Marth based on his Smash 4 pose and design, but I didn’t really like how this turned out because his proportions were really off. I did a few portraits around this time where my proportions for characters ended up really off.
Marth 4: (2026) I came to the realisation I’ve not publicly released another Marth in a long time and thought I’d like to do another take on him and so ended up with the one we have today. I also thought his Lodestar design from the first FE Warriors was pretty cool and decided to make that outfit too.
EDIT: adjusted the closest shoulder plate for Lodestar Outfit
So I’ve drawn my next sprite, was sitting on this one for a while before being away for a while, however I don’t like starting new things while I still have something in progress sitting on the bench.
The thing that took the longest was deciding on a suitable hairstyle that suited the pose and that took forever to find some ideas or inspiration. Oh well onto the next thing, whatever that may end up being. Maybe even another OC, I’ve seen some neat hairstyles I’d like to try spriting and had some ideas for some more different poses too.
I’ve updated the OCs post with the below entry under F2E - Non Fire Emblem Properties (OCs/Misc - Alexandrite)
1st OC of the year. I was thinking of drawing another OC for a while and wondered what would be interesting. I came across the Alexandrite gem, a gem that is said to transition in colour from emerald green to blue to a more ruby red/purple. So this gave me the idea of a character with a multi coloured transitioning hair, kinda like how I did Ruby Rose and some of the FEH OCs (Niðavellir and Sharena). So then I sort of had to come up with a character that sort of went with that and thought about making a shapeshifter/mimic/freelancer (Xane’s class) style character. Their design is on purposely androgynous as they’re supposed to be a sort of shape shifting/mimic style spy/thief who could blend in or pretend to be anyone (within reason). With that line of thinking I decided to make a more interesting pose to be maybe more seductive with their arms up. I actually was sitting on this for the last week of June but I couldn’t think of a hairstyle to go with it before settling on current bun long hair combo. The hair uses 5 tones, but I’ve also made 3 tone variants in case people really want to just use the hair or design in a more simple set. I also made non front arm variants too.
Recommendations:
I originally envisioned their design to be one of the following class types
Mimic/Shapeshifter/Freelancer (Xane’s class), Thief, Rogue, Mage or Sage. Basically keeping in theme with the spy idea.
So I’ve been a bit paralyzed with choice on what to draw next and sorta just ended up on Wonder Woman. I’ve been thinking of a few characters to draw next but not sure whom to pick among them. I may get to them all eventually but probably not immediately after the next choice. I’ve been tossing up between the following;
Nell from Advance Wars
Minerva from FE Shadow Dragon/ New Mystery
Laegjarn from FEH again
Ashera from Radiant Dawn
Seforia from Engage
Brunnya from FE 6
So pretty much women, but yeah having some ideas on how to draw each one, but its probably a bit much to draw all of them in a row after Wonder Woman. It’d be drawing 7 women in a row and something I’ve found drawing over the years, especially when working on Fates and Awakening’s rosters was drawing so many of one gender in a row can be draining/dulling creatively.
Anyway, I’ve updated the Non Fire Emblem Properties (Non Game Franchises) post with the below entry under F2E - Non Fire Emblem (Non Game Franchises - DC - Wonder Woman)
I think my favourite incarnation of Wonder Woman has to be her classic DC AU character (Justice League and JL Unlimited. I really liked her tension and chemistry with Batman and always thought it was a cool ship. Anyway I personally think DC has generally been pretty good at producing and making animated movies and series for their characters with pretty good writing usually and good plots and character. So here is her main DC AU design (Justice League and JL Unlimited). Something that was hard to figure out was the hair cut and the hair shading, in the cartoon its pretty flat. In the newer reboot animated movie series she changes up her outfit from the classic corset with bare shoulders to having the more silver and red motif with a blue under suit leotard thing, so I decided to also do an alt with that outfit (but not her haircut in that > incarnation). I like how her eyes turned out and her general shape. I think if I were to revisit, I’d probably just touch up on shading and cleaning in general I think.
EDIT: Added a circlet-less Diana for splicing fodder;
