Been away for a while, but I still check in to lurk every so often. In some of my spare time, I also sprite. Here are a few things I've been working on. The Storm sprite I began has not really touched, as I ran into some issues with her modified cape and animations. But would still like to finish it.
The blue mage attached was spawned from a portrait sketch I did a while ago. I have not tested it in ShiShi for animations, etc, so its still very much a W.I.P... Not to mention it has some horrendously drawn frames for certain poses...
Then, I had the bright idea to redo all generic sprites, and perhaps even some specials, to mimic the Black Mage/Dark Knight look.
There are others I've began to 'Black-Mage-ify', but are not good enough to post examples. A few of the generic sprites are really easy to do this process with, such as Ninja/Lancer/male Mime/etc. While others would require a hat or something that would cast their face into shadows. Also, as a rule I follow, no skin can show. This opens up the possibility of these being non-human constructs (ala FF9's black mages). And without skin tones, the hair can really be any color and look great compared to normal 'caucasian' units.
Also, I began the portrait for the Blue Mage, but being it is entirely custom with no source material, it looks really terrible and isn't worth sharing at this point.
EDIT: I dunno what the deal is with the black pixels on his robe in the zoomed-in Blue Mage, too lazy to re-upload.
The White Mage in particular reminds me of the dwarves from FFIV, while the Blue Mage... I can say I like everything from the neck down, but the head area feels really busy to me. Though consider that I'm bouncing back from a really harsh sleep deficit; even reading is a difficult task for me, so I'd like to see someone else's input rather than have mine be authoritative in any way.
I think the Blue Mage is phenomenal. I don't know if you were going for this but it kind of looks like his hat is made out of an Ahriman! I'm not a big fan of the White Mage lol like at all. But it would make for a very interesting eventwhere a Black Mage tries to be a White Mage! Something like this...
Dark-White Mage is hilarious. Idk if just making her face black is good enough to make her a Black Mage-esque unit.
The blue mage is very interesting and looks super cool, it could use some cleaning but I really like it. Especially that the hat has an eyeball, that just makes it way more unique.
The black-white mage does need some more facial coverage. As for my blue mage, I used to play Guild Wars, and several of the headpieces for a certain profession (Ritualist (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ritualist_armor)) I wanted to emulate. Yes, the inspiration was a Ahriman! I really dislike the traditional FF Blue Mage 'Scholar' look. I'd rather have my Blue Mages look like the very monsters they learn their abilities from.
But, he (or she?) needs more details on his body so its less male summoner-ish. I've thought of including red cloth that drapes down its back to simulate a 'tail'. And/or perhaps some sort of pattern/markings on his cloak?
I thank everyone for the input! Also, that video doesn't work, Valkirst?
Weird, just go to youtube and type in "White Mage dad is racist" it's pretty funny.
I love Ritualists from Guild Wars! That aside, your Blue Mage concept is pretty cool. I was kind of thinking it would be cool having a Blue Mage more like Gau from FF6. A Ritualist seems more like soothsayer that Communes and Channels with spirits and the remains of powerful Heroes, hence the attribute names.