Final Fantasy Hacktics

Alma Gets a Job:

One of the most popular FFT spriting endeavors is to put Ramza's head on a different sprites body. Following in this tradition it is time to give Alma a bit more attention and give her a real job. Take Alma's standard head and find her a new body. One of the standard FFT female jobs is perfectly acceptable or she can have any other kind of job. Making Alma a standard chemist could be amusing or she could be an Assassin from Assassin's Creed, creativity is key. Making alterations to Alma's head such as giving her a crown or some sunglasses is also perfectly acceptable. Additional guidelines and submission format can be found under the Submission Requirements header.

This is a beginner's level spriting competition and even if you have no spriting experience this is a great chance to give it a try. Feel free to post multiple versions of the same entry to get feedback and improve upon it, just insure that the final version meets all Submission Requirements.

Submissions are due by midnight of the 20th of July. On the 21st all entries will be organized and a public voting poll will be opened for every community member to cast a vote. The poll will have a clearly indicated end time of the 24th to celebrate Alma's Birthday. The poll will be blinded and all users are allowed one vote, please respect the voting process.

Exact awards for the top three entrants are still in development. Expect at minimum some kind of permanent recognition for your accomplishments. Do not expect a particularly tangible award, such as something you would receive by mail.

Submission Requirements:
1) A minimum of 1 front diagonal frame.
2) A job title for Alma to go with the sprite.
3) Cite all sources used including the name of the source sprite and the original artist. Reference "SQUARE" for all original FFT sprites.
4) 100% Zoom in either BMP or PNG format.
5) Post your submission in this thread and it will be officially entered.
6) Loosely follow the general FFT style such as dimensions and palette choice. However, submissions are NOT limited to 16 colors.
7) Submissions need to follow the general competition topic and as such should be at least theoretically recognizable as Alma.
8) Follow general forum rules, such as no nudity.
9) There is NO limit on the number of entries per member as long as they are significantly distinct.
10) If there are multiple valid versions of the same submission posted in the thread, the latest version will be considered the competition version.

Judging Criteria:
1) Creativity: This covers both the job idea and the physical design of the sprite. Find original, intelligent, and witty ways to follow the general theme of the contest.
2) Artistic Ability: The more original elements incorporated into the sprite the better. However, make sure to balance this with the visual quality of the sprite. General pixel art ability, design, and palette choice are important here.
3) Valid Submission: There are clear expectations for submission, please try your best to follow them.

Important Dates:
Opening of Competition: 7/4
Submissions Due: Midnight 7/20
Voting Begins: 7/21
Winners Announced: 7/24 Alma's Birthday

Submission Examples (Ramza as model):

Minimal Submission: Simple Headswap. A submission of this quality will likely not fair well. However, a creative job title or a slick palette change here could help.
(http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=7387.0;attach=7952)
Job Title: Evil Squire
Sources: Ramza Ch1 (SQUARE), Delita Ch1 (SQUARE)

Average Submission: Headswap with added elements from other sprites and palette. With this mix of elements the sprite should still be relatively quick and easy to put together, but should also allow for a lot creativity and gives people an opportunity to show off their skills. Note that this rating is based on being all original work, this example sprite is the work of Vanya.
 (http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=7387.0;attach=7957;image)
Job Title: Defender
Sources: Ramza CH2&3 (SQUARE), Zalbag (SQUARE)

Superior Submission: Using pieces from lots of different sprites or custom elements and palette. Really show off your mad skills. Note that this rating is based on being all original work, this example sprite is the work of Kagebunji and Cheetah.
 (http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=7387.0;attach=7953)
Job Title: Hunter
Sources: Ramza Ch1 (SQUARE), Male Archer (SQUARE), Male Knight (SQUARE)

Already working on my submission! ...it's terrible so far though, lol.

I have a great idea. >:3

Whoo, Almabot 9001! Will add some backstory later. :P

Credit: ALMA (Square), WORKER 8 (Square)

Alma has decided that she is unhappy with her fleshly body and has decided to undergo a Magitek infusion and has become ALMABOT 9001!

Um...

Two words...

Were dead!

First official entry! Feel free to continue to refine it, just remember to give a job title and citations at some point as well.

After something like two hours of work during the night, I finished my first entry!

"Are you stressed because of work, your relationship, or family problems? Try... Alma lap dance!
Alma lap dance improves the quality of your libido significantly.
Scientists have proven that your libido will be 60% more effective than it once was!"

"Call now, the offer won't last forever!(unless you vote for her, yay)"

In other words, Alma as a Dancer in a special red palette of her own and a custom made cloth, also made her uncover one leg for more sexiness. Base body was Smash's remade Dancer. Also threw in Ramza that is shocked, he should have predicted it after changing her class to Dancer, silly Ramza...

Job Title: Malmboro (thank you Mando for the name)
Sources: Malboro (Square), Alma(battle) (Square)

Enjoy!

@Kage: That is a damn fine looking sprite. The cloth is particularly impressive given how custom it is.
@St4r: Yeah so I would have never thought of this idea ever, I kind of like it.

Hah, I'm loving this already.

This is amazing. My dream patch has Alma and a Mascot job so I would legitimately use one of these already.

Probably the best I can do. That stupid freehand cape...

Job Title: Thunder Goddess Alma
Sources: Alma(Battle) (Square), Orlandu (Square), Lede (Square)

(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj174/FF255Master/wip2.png)

Malmboro is by far my favorite so far.

@FFMaster: Maybe you should loose the hood. There are lots of custom sprites that have it removed that might make the whole thing easier. The palette is looking decent but needs a little refinement.

@St4r: Your Catma Sith needs a bit of work, what is happening above her head?

I gave to cat guy on top a arm. and I made Alma's head smaller, and eyes bigger, so it looks as though it is looking at you. Its also kinda very blurry.

You will get Alma suffocated on that portrait, GS, haha.

Star, don't post blurry pictures please, I cannot see details clearly on that thing above Almacat. I wonder what people are thinking of when combining Alma with monsters, hehe.

FFM, the hood shouldn't be visible like that. We are looking at her from an angle, not from front. Just erase the hood completely like mentioned earlier and paste over only her head. And yeah, try to mess with palette.

I'll deleted my cait sith. I shall work on the blurry tomorrow. Must sleep right now.

As a troubled teen young Alma turned to food to satisfy an emotional hole. When she compared herself to her beautiful friend the princess, she felt motivated to make a change.  Like most spoiled nobles changing herself through diet and exercise wasn't a quick enough fix.  Why not just pay for my surgery daddy?

Presenting failed-lapband-surgery-alma-barbie!

Base idea is great, but you could do something to make her more human, mainly the arms, they are monster's, whoa.

Small update on Dancer Alma, made her actually hold the cloth, earlier it looked weird.

If I was a sprite, I'd hit it!

I love that sprite, CONMAN. Ivalician weight-loss surgery isn't as advanced as it used to be...

Good job, everyone. I'm glad that are you interested in this ^^.
Btw I'll post my alma's version in a few more days, It'll be problably the most hilarious sprite I ever done. And have a great time and Good luck.

Good stuff so far.. I think I've got an idea now.
There's still plenty time so.. I'll get to it soon enough

OMG Kage. Your sprite makes me laugh. xD Actually, a lot of these bring me happiness! ^_^ Anyway, my submission!

Alma - Vocaloid

Alma has been a cleric in the past and in the worlds she traveled to along with her brother Ramza, everyone has loved her very much. She is dead now, but someone has brought her back to life again! Maybe not exactly as a human, but as a pop-star robot known as a Vocaloid! Now she can be loved for an eternity by not only her healing magic, but her voice as well. Her number is 7/24, representing her birthday.

I have found the sprites on spriters-resource.com (was too lazy to use Shishi. LOL!)

Alma (Squaresoft/Enix) - Head and Colors
Female Squire (Squaresoft/Enix) - Dress
Dancer (Squaresoft/Enix) - Shoulders
Female Mime (Squaresoft/Enix) - Boots, Bow, and Sleeves

Her head is bigger than the rest of the body, that is kinda unproportional, haha. Glad you like the Dancer.

Can't wait to see more people's ideas.

Job Title: CatMa Sith
Source: Twinees Cait Sith Sprite ideas, Alma (Square)

Here you go, as promised the fix CaitMa Sith.

No need to post a zoomed in version now, just the 100%. I will make standardized zoomed previews when the time comes for voting.

As a general tip I never use any of the graphic program's zoom/expand functions because they always smooth them out. I usually just manually zoom to 300% and then take a screen shot. That preserves the pixelation

I lol'd forever at Malmboro, Almabot 9001, and Quecklma

I may have made a poor choice on the bikini- but then big girls/Alma often make poor wardrobe choices as well....  
now retouched=crappily

Everyone are doing Monster Almas, so I decided to do one as well. Alma as Hulk! Base sprite was Belias, then I started changing various thing here and there, most noticeable are arms, also made the legs slimmer etc. Used Altima's chest and modified it as well. I know Hulk was either green or gray, but this color works better in terms of contrast.

Dear goodness it is hideously awesome.

LOL OMG!

Man, it sure looks great, awesome job kangebunji  :shock:

@Conman & St4r: I'm not sure about how you are trying to change Alma's skin tone right now. I would recommend either changing the palette of the moster to a normal skin tone, that would be interesting, or do what Kage did and match her skin to that of the monster.

I'm putting a lighty transparent color over here head so it matchs with the monster. Malmoro is lighty pink. I did that because, her hair and skin are the same colour of the malboro's teeth. So a colour that matchs will with green is red, but alma wouldn't look good in red, so I did pink. Turned out well, imo.

I did get a few recommendations to make the monster same skin colour as alma's to make it more creepy.

Good stuff Kage Alma really is a she hulk there.

Job Title: White Cleric
Sources: Alma (SQUARE), White paletted Alma (I forget who did it but it was someone on FFT here - let me know and I'll credit you properly), Male Priest (SQUARE, for palette)

This is an old idea I never bothered to work on because it was just too niche to bother. As above, I forget who did the white palette version of Alma but I loved how it looked and kind of wanted to put her into my patch with that palette...and I just never got around to it. To fit the contest I thought I'd use that as a base for a White Mage hybrid for Alma. I took the orange colors from the original Priest sprite and even put that on her bow, though it does lose a little something since I can't shade a sprite to save my life. This was really just a quick and dirty submission. I think I spent like...5 minutes on this, tops. >.>

Job Title: Dark Alma
Source: Mando & CidIII Cecil Sprite, Alma (Square)

A little thing I had to do for lovy little alma. When Ramza told her to go undercover, she forgot some important details.

Nice submission Celdia, those symbols look especially good on her. I have no idea what to add more to make her even more special.

I told you everything on chat, Kokojo. I will look forward to next version.

Nice work Celdia and Kokojo.

@Celdia: This looks very clean and well done. Maybe you could add a custom staff for her to be holding or something.
@Kokojo: I was never a big fan of that base sprite, but it is a great concept.

o_o Really, guys? I thought it looked half-assed...mostly 'cause I half-assed it. Maybe I'll add something more to it before the deadline.

@Celdia: it simple and cool, i think Ceetah's idea is a cool one, maybe making her hold a staff would turn real nice.

@kokojo: realy cool what you have there, but i think it's just too covered, we nearly can't see alma's face (or realy we can't)

Yeah a nice staff could really top the Alma priestess;
lookin' good!

(http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/7752/almaholyprincess.png)(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/7752/almaholyprincess.png)
Job Title: White Noble
Sources: Alma (SQUARE), White paletted Alma, Ovelia (SQUARE)

Ok, is not really a great job, I've just recolour the Ovelia dress with 2 really small modification, maybe someday i'll go deeper on this sprite xD (is strange that if we see the small pics, the dress look little different than Ovelia one on the chest)

Anyway it's realy cool dill, this sprite would look realy cool in a patch.

I'm kind of dumbfounded by how good that White Noble looks. That plus the younger male priest that was uncovered would make an excellent job set for advanced mages with some palette change ups. Nice work Dill.

I said so in chat but I'll say as here as well, I think Diil's entry is better than mine by a wide margin.

Quote from: Celdia on July 09, 2011, 04:51:35 pm
I said so in chat but I'll say as here as well, I think Diil's entry is better than mine by a wide margin.

Not to diminish Celdia's work by any means, but this is still probably true.

My skills aren't too great, but I think this will suffice as my first submission.

Cosplayer Alma
Cosplay Role: FE8 Forde

Sources:
Alma (SQUARE)

Alma takes a job as an explorer:

I like it a lot Lijj. Only thing is the shadows beneath the hat like spoken on chat. My little wish is to see a whip on her, hehe.

OK, here's an updated version of my previous submission that fixes a few errors that some people on iRC spotted.

@GeneralStrife: Yes feel free to continue to update your submission up until the due date. Either edit your old post, or if you like do a repost.

Safari Alma brings back memories of Gundam Wing where Relena Peacecraft is wearing the outfit!

pic in spoiler

haha these are great

Hot pic Mando.. I've always thought safari attire was kind of sexy myself.

Zozma where is your entry ;).

Quote from: Cheetah on July 12, 2011, 10:51:52 pm
Zozma where is your entry ;).

I'll submit my entry today

I may update it some~

However here it is:

Sheikma!

Alma(face colors by Square) + Edge (Custom) to look like Sheik

Alma has escaped Igros and ventured into the desert where she learned ninja skills to secretly fight beside Ramza.

This is awesome enough to deserve a full sprite, methinks.

Tired of being used, Alma resolves to fight back!  Let the hunters become the hunted!

LUCAVI_HUNTER!
credit: female rogue (R999, Lijj) and Squaresoft.

Haha, bandna is flat, but very amusing. Guns could be placed better too. Actually I don't quite see what pose she is in. But I like this nonetheless.

I adjusted the damaged pose- I like the oddness of it.

BOOM!

I'm not an artist... maybe a sprite engineer?


I'm bored and I thought this would be cool so... presenting Alma-Magitech Knight!
Credits: Iron Giant ( Luiakyn and CURU), and of course Squaresoft.

hahaha!
Still...interesting alma pose up there...I like it.

@General Strife: If you did some custom palettes those entrees could be quite good. maybe a pink fur lining or something.

@Mondo: That is pretty sweet looking, I want to see more of that base sprite as well.

@Conman: Wow those are some interesting submissions. I like your use of alternative poses while still following the submission guidelines. Magitech design could be insanely cool if refined.

Hello all! I'm new to sprite creating stuff, and I thought this would be a great place to start, so I just did a simple head swap.  Lemme know what you think!

Job Title: Noble Knight
Credit: Female Knight (Square) ; Alma (Square)

(//)

personally i think its very well done for a first attempt at a headswap.

she looks good in that!

Thanks! It was pretty basic , so I challenged myself to make one a little more complicated.
This is what I came up with, and lemme know if there's anything I should add/fix!

Title: The Warrior Alma (I ain't good at creating names..)
Credit: Alma (Square) ; Elmdore (Square) ; Reis (Square)

These are both great attempts Sarbs, I'm glad to see you challenging yourself. The Warrior Alma is a great concept and I like the colors, though things got a little messy around the collar. I would recommend touching it up a bit more.

That is really good Sarbs. There are two grey pixels that should be red and one red on the tip of the collar that looks too light. Just re-work the collar and I just might vote for that one

Well, Alma is pretty busy with her new jobs...specially with the headhunter thing (or whatever Samus suppose to be)

Oh my.
I may have to vote for YMCAlma just because the green one is so cool.

Thank you Cheetah & Lijj!  I fixed her up a little bit, and also re-did the sword.
I think this will be my final entry unless there's something major I missed haha

Alma the Warrior
Alma (Square) ; Reis (Square) ; Elmdor (Square)

Also I really like Sheikma, nice job Mando!

This is my entree black wizard Alma just a beginner so please no bad comments
Alma+blackwizard

Here's my next entree
Alma+time wizard= Santa Alma
Hope its good enough

Dark Lepurcan, The first one looks like it may have been resized wrong and the hat isn't complete , or it's cut off at the bottom. A good idea though so keep it up and edit.

Oh man. YMCAlma. That is the best yet if only for being so damned crazy. XD

@Sarbs: Nice improvements. There is still something a little funky about the neck alignment, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
@Dark Lepurcan: All entries require at least one Side-Front angle, you only have Side for Santa Alma. It is a nice concept btw. As Lijj mentioned the wizard got a little funky, though it creates an interesting chibi look.
@Wolf: I actually really like the Alma Aran. Did you want to enter your YMCA club as a single entry?

Sure, Cheetah. I think it doesn't work if they aren't together.
Update Alma Aran: I edited some minor details.

Title: Sexy Angel



Sources: Altima I [SQUARE], Ramza Ch. 1 [SQUARE], Sunglasses [CUSTOM]

I know improvements can be made such as the left arm (our right) by making it fuller (if that makes any sense) as well as the neck where it seems as if she doesn't have one, and possibly the shades that she dons.

With that said, tell me what you think (2 hours into it maybe) I could've done to make it better (include anything that I left out from my n00bish assessment >_>) and appear cleaner because I actually won't be able to edit it anymore today since I've got to go to a baseball game that I've been dragged into X(

Regardless, I'm happy that I at least threw something together and entered anyways.

If you guys don't like the sprite in general, hope you like the idea at the very least :D

Edit: Just realized, that one pixel at the bottom of Altima's Right leg stands out quite a bit XD
Edit 2: Shoot, almost forgot, if anyone's wondering about Ramza's strange hue, it's because of the Regen effect from the Chao's Blade ;)

This is my improvement for  Santa Alma you actually see her face

Assassin Creed Alma here is my next entree hope you like. you cant see Alma though
Custom+Meliadoul+Alma

@Dark Lepurcan: I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I think you need to spend a bit more time with these. What graphics editing program are you using btw? Wizard Alma is still sloppy, even if you are going for the Chibi look. Santa Alma doesn't actually have Alma's head. Assassins Creed is a cool idea, but it needs to be cleaned up and be recognizable as Alma. Just spend a little bit more time refining these, your ideas are good but these are just too rushed. I'm also suspecting that you need a bit more practice with your graphics editing tools.

@Wiz: I need a 100% zoom version or it can't count. Bizarre idea btw haha.

sorry I know i need practice these are my first 3 using GIP

Please try not to double post, Dark. Our posting system has an Edit feature. :)

It's ok Dark Lepurcan, we appreciate your posts and all of these ideas. We know you're new to pixel art we aren't trying to be mean ; our responses are only to help you.

(http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/4169/altimaandramza.png)

Here it is at 100%.

Does the deadline mean 7/20/11 at midnight EST? You should clarify this because if that's the case, then I got this in in the nick of time :P

Do you mean GIMP? That is a pretty common editor, I think quite a few of our spriters use it. Graphics Gale is also pretty highly recommended. No worries, you will never learn unless you keep practicing and that is exactly what you are doing. Keep up the good work.

@Wiz: Thanks for pointing that out!

Dead Line Reminder:

All submissions must be in by July 20th at 11:59 PM or 23:59. This means that there are just over 24 hours left in the competition. This thread will be edited or a new thread will be open for all members to cast a vote through a poll.

Red Mage Alma

Body Used "Squire" by Square (Square Enix now)

The hat someone else made originally... not sure who I can't find where the sprite sheet is located for this anymore... anyways I touched it up and did some recoloring... I made the face/hair look as much like Alma as possible.

Updated my first post with the necessary info.

@Eternal: Great thanks.

@Mando: This is a very slick looking entry. It needs citations though.

Ok Cheetah I added the Citation as accurately as I know =x

Quote from: Dark Lepurcan on July 19, 2011, 06:55:21 pm
This is my improvement for  Santa Alma you actually see her face

The last one is my iprovment

this is my improvement for wizard sorry its so big......   

These are looking better Dark Lepurcan, nice work.

Oh cheetah did my "citation" of sorts do the trick?

Yes that is fine Mando, I know what sprite you are referring too and I could never figure out where it came from either.

Dragon Warrior Alma
Dragon+Alma+Zalbag+custom
Best one yet.....

I like that dragon riding warrior! I could see something like that as an actual enemy monster.  This reminds me that I wanted to style Alma as a sheperd with some uribos and title it "the pig whisperer (grunterer), but it would have been in very poor taste.

I think you could have used a "horse stance" frame to make that look more natural.

Ok, first things first. Few basic steps. Don't fuckin do custom work. You have little to none skills in FFT spriting, so doing custom work will result in a fail, as seen on the picture above. Look at the tail, flat, and in weird shape, same for back legs. This looks way too flat. I also wonder why you post sprites in such weird windows. Post it in a normal square with normal size and 3x or 2x size. As to the earlier concepts, you pasted the face in, not the entire head, and that is why it looked weird. Next time around paste on whole Alma's head, and then paste the hat or w/e you want. Also remember to use FFT palettes, but this doesn't seem to be a problem atm.

this is my dragon warriors approvment sorry i don't know how to change it to 2 times 3 so your going to have to live with the rectangle....................

To resize you open up a sprite in paint, copy and paste the frame you want to resize, select the copied frame, and resize it by two or three times. Now that it is bigger, you can see that her skin is looking weird, armguard is flat, and beginning of the tail is some green square.

1.OH MY LORD PLEASE SCALE >< just take it into paint and go to scale by % and type 200 >_> it seriously isn't that hard if your using gale go to the all frames tab and hit resample and do it there... either or...

2.I hate to sound like a d.bag but this is killing me >.>;

3.Also the lest leg why is it blob like :/? just copy the shading you did on the right leg or something...

also just modify your message if your making an edit... instead of taking the whole page makes it easier on people still submitting and the judges.

(http://lolblog.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/facepalm.jpg)
Is really all I can say

here's Huntress

Also dragon knight

I made small updates to my 2 submissions. Some pixels were really bothering me :/

I have made... A SUBMISSION!

Source: Original Alma Sprite (SQUARE)
Job: GASEOUS FORM

This is Alma with the gaseous form job class. It is the best job class. You only do gaseous form. Remember the Black Marble Gallery and when you got poison gas and could kill the Guardians there with impunity? See?

And that's why I only see in black and white now.

Inspired by a discussion on IRC, ORIGINAL CHARACTER DO NOT STEAL :ban:

Saved.

FFM maybe you can help me...I'm at a loss of nice words.

Lepurcon, please do not double post. Use the Modify feature.

Less than 4 hours before entrees will not be accepted.

Cuddly Alma

Alma and Uribo by Square

omg i love the avatar and the sig

Hmm, since the deadline was based off of 11:59 PM PST, submissions are closed as of roughly eight minutes ago. Whether the voting will take place here or another thread, idk.

Don't listen to my former self, I didn't know what I was talking about and was only trying to be helpful/informative XP

Sorry Wiz, I'm not going by PST. There is still just over 30 minutes left.

Oh, alright. Sorry about that Cheetah, you never specified exactly what time zone at midnight and I assumed you were going off yours. I'll edit my post now XD

The Contest is now closed!

Look for the official voting poll tomorrow, it may be in this same thread. Do not worry if this thread disappears for a while, it will just be receiving a face lift.