Final Fantasy Hacktics

Quote from: Wolfran on July 30, 2011, 04:16:18 pm
I like how it looks now, specially the scar is a great improvement. But that smile doesn't work, it shows too much teeth.

Thanks, I'm gonna have to work some more on the smile, it's definitely part of this characters demeanor and personality.  The smile reflects his yearning for battle and unwavering attitude.

Quote from: GeneralStrife on July 30, 2011, 04:29:44 pm
Yeah, go closed mouth, open mouth ports look weird always cause they were never used, it's hard to make them work.

Hm, I know how open mouth ports can be difficult to make, but I'm gonna keep the smile, it's just something this character has to have.

Did some little work before I went to bed:
Need to work on the fur a little bit more.  gn!

Quote from: GeneralStrife on July 30, 2011, 01:53:46 am
And how many colors are you down to?

14

Quote from: emptycanyon on July 30, 2011, 02:06:48 am
portrait's looking good so far, the thing that strikes me the most odd is the fur: i can't really tell if it's supposed to be a shoulder piece thing like gafgarrion's or if it goes across the chest...

Thanks, right... hmm, well... I've got a drawing and its supposed to be fur lining across his shoulder armor.  I've got something in mind now that I've done most of the hair.

Quote from: GeneralStrife on July 30, 2011, 12:57:39 am
Remember colors on the portrait are different than on the sprite itself. Look at the colors of lirmont's collar. Those actually look close to the same as the hair. The trick is to find a nice healthy combination of colors that complement each other well.
Also, gutsy going with an open mouth, the teeth actually don't look that bad. But I'm not the first and foremost in portraiting. I'd wait for Lijj or twin or kage.

Yep, workin on that.  So you're sayin I could use whatever colors I want on a portrait, but not the actual sprites?  *scratches head*  Heheh yeah, gutsys my middle name .  Um if I can't use more than 16 colors I'll try to figure out how I'm gonna edit my actual colors... I hope i don't have to do them manually.  
Here's what I've got so far:
Going for a flared look, something that gives off a energetic tone.  Ya know, young, dumb, and dangerous.

Quote from: emptycanyon on July 30, 2011, 12:12:41 am
Hey everyone, first sprite project. Eventually I would like the make some animated sprites, but don't have any of the programs downloaded. This was supposed to be Morrissey of the Smiths, tried combing Elmdor, Dycedarg, and a random civilian with some editing jobs on the hair and clothing. Let me know what you guys think or if you had any advice.

The most trouble I had was coloring the hair and some shading here and there.

Also, some future ideas include an animated Ganesha, probably made from Queklain and Velius with a custom head.

New to the forum as well, hope everything works out!

Nice job putting them together man!  Interested to see how you'll polish your portrait up.  I think you've captured Elmdor's facial features and skin tone well, but the hair looks a little iffy.  I don't know if you want to keep that right eye under the hair... either way, you may need to edit the hair/eye, or both.  Good luck, please take a look at my thread for my custom portrait as well, I'll also be updating my portrait through my forum pic!

Nice Killergamer, are you planning on editing the portrait sometime? or will you keep it?

Hey sarbs, it's good to see another spriter onboard!  It's good to see it progressing, although the white trimming on the (sashes?) is really bright, to me at least, it really takes the attention off the main attraction, the character.  Perhaps considering a lighter white-to-grey shade?  Well, either way.. it's lookin like it's getting somewhere.  Keep it up

Quote from: lirmont on July 29, 2011, 10:11:30 pm
Image mode needs to be a format with indexed color.

xD Nice, I had to change it to 8 bit then I was able to format it to indexed colors... now to figure out what colors to keep -_-;; this is gonna be fun. 

Quote from: GeneralStrife on July 29, 2011, 06:21:03 pm
Yeah the feathers need some work, steal from gaf or squall, or that port kage posted, right now it looks like someone is spraying milk at him

Lol definitely gonna use those resources you guys gave me and improve the fur, right now I'm still working on the hairstyling.

Quote from: Kagebunji on July 29, 2011, 06:33:47 pm
Indeed, Wolf, I got those from Naruto section. It is no longer banned, so why not I guess.

Take your time with this, Phlash, sometimes it takes lot of time to do something, I am the best example hehe(Lenneth took me 6 months to complete). I don't know what you talk about with the angle of portrait, I never mentioned that anything is wrong with the angle, heh. All you should fix ASAP is the hair and fur. I also saw it is way over 16 colors. I would advise changing shirt color to the same one hair uses, you will save some. Another option is to fuse as many skin and hair color as possible, but later about the palette.

Hey Kage xD yes I know that, I just want to finish this perfectly asap not only just to finish it, but to get critiqued and get better as fast as possible.  I like to give myself deadlines because I'm usually on a deadline and having pressure makes me feel sharper.  How did you check the color palette number, I tried earlier what someone suggested I do in photoshop which was Image>mode>colour palette, however the actual option to check it is greyed out.  I realized that I may have been over the limit, but I'll see what I can do.  I know it doesn't take 300 colors to make a great portrait xD.  I've gotta go, I've got an appt for the massage, I just wanted to keep ya guys posted.

Quote from: Kagebunji on July 29, 2011, 11:27:30 am
I see you started using the portrait as your avatar already. But it is far from being done, soldier. What strikes me the most is flat hair and fur. Here is a fur example(not quite good, but you ged the idea I hope)of how it should partially look. Your fur is very flat, not similiar to either this one or Gaffgarion's(you must heavily follow Gaffgarion, it is a good reference).

Another thing is the scar, it still looks weird. Scar is kinda hard to fit in for me, but here is a scar that Jimmy made long ago, and it looks damn perfect, follow this as a reference too.

Last thing is the hair, it is WAY too flat. Did you use some reference for it? Some character etc. If yes, please post, so we can see. You currently have no shading at all on the hair. To shade hair properly you need to have some Reference character, and once you get basic shapes down, you open many FFT ports that are at least a little similiar to your reference and start drawing. It will likely result in a better shading and will look close to FFT style.

Don't give up now. Once you polish this portrait, it will be pretty damn good.

Hey Kage, I haven't been on in awhile.  I realize that but I did it, just to do it .  I haven't given up, I just wanted to see how it looked as a portrait.  The hair is still a WIP, and I've been busy this week, good thing it'sthe weekend.  Kage, I really don't see what's wrong with the angle of the face, and I can easily adjust the hair to fit the angle.  I am going to keep pushing on the original, and thank you for the suggestions and references btw.

Quote from: Wolfran on July 27, 2011, 11:50:14 am
The scar seems too large, Kage. I think it needs more space like the one in ET's avatar.
The fur is a little bright but it looks great so far. Btw you have the sprite done or it's just a portrait???

Hi Wolfran, this is currently my only project I am working on.  I am trying to keep the 16 color limit true to the standards of the game and maintain a unique piece.

Quote from: Kagebunji on July 27, 2011, 08:19:55 am
Could you post a normal sized portrait? My advice is to post a normal sized one and a 2 or 3 times bigger next to it. It won't take as much space. I would like to see normal size so I could fix up the eyebrow, scar and face line a little. I take it you are not finished with hair yet, so I will wait till later, just make sure to have LOTS of references opened up, that way you will be closer to mimicking FFT style.

Ah, okay here ya go

Quote from: GeneralStrife on July 26, 2011, 09:58:13 pm
Think about the lightsource. The tippy top would be illuminated more(brighter). Take a look at other portraits to get an idea of this.

ah, Ill keep that stuff in mind generalstrife.

Quote from: Cheetah on July 26, 2011, 10:17:34 pm
The texturing is the hardest part of the hair; the lighting is important but not as tough. For an idea on how to do scars look at my Voldemort portrait, the sprite is in the custom sprite downloads section.

Right, I saw the portrait and have got an idea of what I need to do, like give it a look of depth.

Quote from: Lijj on July 26, 2011, 11:36:48 pm
Hair is my weakness actually. I'd recommend,  as others have to me, opening as many original portraits up as you can fit without getting too crazy and just mimic the style as much as you can. I have trouble going out of reasonable FFt style still with those.

Ah lol.  Yeah I'm trying to keep it unique but hopefully get it within standards and *maybe* create a full spritesheet one day.
EDIT: Hey everyone, this is what I've got from tonight,  sheesh, who knew pixeling would take so much of my time, all fun though!

Nice man! What videos did ya watch? Lijjs?  Anyways nice man.

Quote from: Lijj on July 26, 2011, 08:21:40 pm
Well keep it up.. It looks like you're on the right path.

hehe thanks lijj! Do you have any tips for this hair...? I know your a pro at portraits and stuff so hook me up xD

Quote from: GeneralStrife on July 26, 2011, 05:12:34 pm
Looks good, I immediately noticed that the hair isn't shaded enough. It's one saturated color on 60 % of it, mostly the top.

yes, reason why is because I'm still trying to figure out how/what I'm gonna do with it, so, I'm still scheming out what I'm going to do.  This is going to the hardest part of the portrait for me, since this literally my first sprite project, lol!

Quote from: dinosaur on July 26, 2011, 11:17:45 am
Lookin sexy!

Thanks dino, please don't be afraid to be hard on me xD.

Quote from: Durbs on July 26, 2011, 12:55:27 pm
That's really cool. Do I see another portraiter on the block? 

Is the strip of color running on his cheekbone a scar? It looks out of place on the smaller portrait. Maybe reduce it / eliminate it?

Thanks durbs, oh that strip is gafgarions armor.. I was messing around and wanted to see if I could pulloff a different angled fur knight.  Maybe I might do an armored helmed version of him later, but I'm tied down with this portrait.  When I get good I can fool around.  The strip of color is a scar and I would like to keep it, yes i know it's hard to pull off but I want to pull it off

Quote from: Cheetah on July 25, 2011, 02:46:32 am
Eegad that is a horrible resource. Not only are those not native resolution, they aren't even consistent. Native means not blown up or distorted. Get some of the stuff from here http://ffhacktics.com/spr.php

You can turn anti-aliasing off in the tool options at the top, it is usual a little check box for each individual tool after selecting the tool.

Using the lasso isn't the best, when using the magic selector you can set it to one color and then hold shift to add more colors. It would take about five seconds to get all of Gaf's white fur selected.

Ah thanks for the tips Cheetah, I'm starting to get the hang of Photoshop now.  Btw, here's what I've got so far for the portrait
EDIT: did some tuning up tonight, have no idea what i'm going to do with the hair or how to shade it, been checking out other portraits.

Quote from: MysticKnightFF5 on July 25, 2011, 07:35:38 pm
I can play the flute! But I can't record it

and why's that?  ohh like sound record or webcam record?

Fun fact: I used to play the flute, clarinet, and violin when I was little.

Quote from: Xifanie on July 24, 2011, 08:45:04 am
I have tried a bit, but normally just pluging in my tablet is too much work to make it worthwhile. IMO the tablet is only useful in spriting for sketching the portrait.

Yeah, I used my wacom bamboo tablet for my concept art with making my custom portrait.  I had some trouble (still do) but I enjoy it for my other artwork!

Quote from: RedWorld on July 24, 2011, 11:09:16 am
Yeah, I know how that is. Honestly, I don't think it's very useful, but I've never tried. I just use my mouse for spriting. Which reminds me, kinda off-topic, but I gotta start spriting again. >.<

Ahhh, I see, yes for me, I don't really have a steady hand, and when I *tried* spriting with it, I would often miss my mark by 1 pixel or so xD.  Don't worry about bein off topic xD,  I haven't had a chance to see your work but I'm glad that you have an interest in spriting again

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on July 24, 2011, 11:49:50 am
I don't even have a tablet and I don't see why you would need one, but I'm fairly closed towards new technology.

As for the stylus + tablet combination, the stylus is more intuitive than a mouse and a tablet's automatic zoom in/out feature is nice, but if your hand-eye coordination is bad (or if your tablet is super-sensitive), a mouse is probably easier to manipulate without making errors.   Computers also have bigger screens, faster hardware, and better visual editing software than tablets.

Yep, that's how I am with my tablet as well since my coordination isn't all that great.