Final Fantasy Hacktics

Hello there people of ffhacktics!
I may be new posting here, but I have been lurking for a while in this forum by now. BUT that's not the main purpose.
You see, I was noticing a lack of finished Gabranth sprites around. So I decided to make one myself!

By the way, I would like to know your opinion about it. I don't exaclty intend to continue working on this base if you guys think it's not good enough. And that's exaclty the reason I didn't do more sides of it.

The head looks completely bizarre.  The rest of it has potential.  Might want to do another pose or two and have some double-sized images as well so we can get a good look at them.

Thanks for the tip of the head; although I tried making it look like more the original Gabranth, I see now it is indeed quite strange.
By the way, how can I post bigger images? thanks in advance!

Well you can either search through the tools of whatever program you use until you find a function to stretch the image, or you just do it manually by making the same image with four pixels in the new image for every one in the old.  It really shouldn't be too hard to find the stretch function though.

'kay, I finished two more positions.
I didn't have any new ideas for his head, and therefore I've left it untouched as the lancer's head on the two new positions. Any suggestions on a new head?
(P.S.: found the stretch thingy xD)
[EDIT: added the file in a smaller size]

2x or 3x is the standard, that is way too big, and has no color to it. it looks like you have a decent idea going though, good luck.

Sorry, I had no idea what the standard was.
As a matter of fact, the idea was originally making a whole black and white Gabranth, and only then to color him. However, if you think it is better to make a colored version already, I'll gladly accept it - I'm completely new to spriting and this kinda stuff, so I don't know exactly where should I go/what should I do first.

You more or less changed the arms of the Lancer/Dragoon and turned it black and gray. My method is to get the colors right before anything else. Since the Lancer/Dragoon is the base, my suggestion is to just change first the colors to what you want them to be. Also, what program are you using? Paint, Photoshop, GraphicsGale? Here is (maybe) the order of what you should do: first do the colors (get them down correctly how you need 'em), then change only slightly what you want with using those same colors, so example change the helmet and horns on the Dragoon, then once you are confident that it is good, post it up here. And please post it 2 or 3 times original size, and please post at the very least the front view (which you already have) and the front side view (which is the second one on the spritesheet). I wish ya luck with this and welcome to the FFH community!

Welcome aboard. I think Jon and the others pretty much summed up anything I was going to say...Maybe you should be a little more creative with the palette--just making the sprite gray won't suffice: you should look for some dark colors that accentuate the armored look. While you're at it, consider using different boots, preferably armored ones.

Best of luck to ya.

What they said.
Good luck.

When you choose your own colors to use for this sprite, take from existing sprites. 99/100 times making a custom palette will look horrible

Also, stay away from outlines. the helmet on the front view you made has a dark outline that does not look good

oh geez, here are advices: first of all his hand and head with horns are way too flat. You need more colors! Gabtanth had grey, black and red colors in it IIRC, so use those. And what is that...thing on his chest? I can't tell. And copy/paste more, custom making will lead you to nothing with skills you have currently. I suggest copying Ramza's hands(sprite from Ch 2&3)

Come to think of it, I am going to make it all again.
That one was poorly made and I had no notion whatsoever of how to begin; however, I think I got a great idea now.
thanks to y'all!
Also, the program I'm using is good ol' MS Paint.

MS Paint is definitely a great program for these kinds of work. Good luck with this sprite--and don't worry about the portrait, I believe some of the Japanese guys have a completed one lying around.

About the portrait, I have it already. Found it here, by the way... was on some pretty old topic, but was definitely worth the search! (if you want me to post it here, just say the word)

MS Paint OWNED!!! ^^
Good luck

Paint? First everyone tells me to get away from Photoshop and move on to GraphicsGale, whats next? Go back to Paint? C'mon y'all, GG owns in its own right too. And yeah, why not, post the portrait please. I wanna see this...

I haven't finished the new one yet, but I will post the portrait I'm basing it off now...

That is a decent portrait based off of the male Samurai I believe. You should add some more color to give more depth and shading, and perhaps red for the eyes (?). Forgot what color eyes he has haha...

Though the angle is different from Male Samurai.

Nay, not thinking of changing this portrait at all... kinda lazy
But his eye colors are black, really. I just made it red in my sprite so the eyes could be seen, I'd thought the armor had gotten too dark.

That red is a bit bright for the eyes, but I think using any color other than black is the right decision.

Finished the first two positions!
[attachment=0:vhxj6nit]gabranthnew002show.PNG[/attachment:vhxj6nit]

Yeah, I thought red would be the best color for his eyes, at least for now...
Hope you like it!

I'm sorry but the whole thing is just too messy and flat. The red is not really working either. The colours are too dark. I don't know what's going on with the shoulder, arms, waist plates and legs. The chest is also flat. The helmet is just flat, square and wrong. If I'm not mistaken, I think you use Dark Knight from PSP, right?
Anyway, I'll try come up with a sample to help.

Hmmm, its good you posted it at a good size and also as a .png, however the side view is unfortunetly totally wrong. But don't give up! What you probably wanna do is give the eyes a glowing effect, by adding a lighter red in contrast to the dark one. Also like Jim said, the colors are a bit too dark overall, try looking and immitating maybe the colors of Elmdor and remember that you can have a maximum of 15 colors for the character and then black for the background(which you have already). I think I may post some quick version too to help you get on the right path. However, since this looks a little bit like FF1 Garland, perhaps that is the character I will base my work off of, if you don't mind.

Edit: I know this is the wrong place to ask for this, but as a favor, could someone maybe post 4 .sprs or .pngs of the male and female versions of Dark Knight and Onion Knight from the PSP version? Or send it to my email on here? I don't have that game right now...but thanks in advance if it is not too much trouble

I'll see if I can find those SPRs for you, Jon, but you may want to post that in the Request topic too.

As for the sprite here...it needs a ton of work: the helmet shape is a little too boxy, and it needs a lot more shading to look right. The chest (especially on the angled view) looks like a giant plate. Likewise, you need to work on the angles, the roundness, and the shading. As for the palette, it needs help too, but it's hard to describe; maybe I'll post a mock-up when I get home tonight.

Thank you Mav and will post in the Request topic.

Oh, I really don't mind you picking it up as a base, man.
I have those sprites you want right here, but I can't post them now... I'm in a bit of a hurry, you see.
But I can post them like 3 or 4 hours from now, if you'd like to

No need. Was already posted by Jim in the requested section, but thanks nevertheless.

This Gabranth doesn't look like him at all. Look at how he should look like, this is Kuraudo attempt.

download/file.php?id=2941 (http://www.ffhacktics.com/forum/download/file.php?id=2941)

Yeah, that's a decent Gabranth. Sorry, I haven't got time to make sample.

japtac's gabranth is a good one too. i would post the link to the page but it's against the rules lol

Sorry for being away so much time.
Anyway, I retook this project a few days ago, when I saw in a thread whose name I can't recall, a DK Cecil sprite.
I saw it and boom, there was my helmet.

I want your opinions about it. Mainly on the colors I should add to it, or if none. (particularly, I feel it is kinda colorless, so I decided to ask your opinions about it.)

I suggest using Pieke's colour or other sprites that have silver; well, according to the reference picture.

Give him black cape and make that red symbol on his back, then use those colors to make him more colorful

Get rid of that green, pick better shades of gray, and add more shading to the cape. His horns look really strange and different on a lot of the poses too. Keep it up though, guy.

OK, I'll be doing those tonight probably.
By the way, I have a little request for you good portrait makers out there. Apparently, that Gabranth portrait I posted earlier in this topic has too many colors (if my memory fails me not, about 80). And so, since I really won't have time to take those many colors out of it, I'm asking this tiny favor to those who would like to see my attempt completed. Thanks!

If you could post the image, I can probably reduce it for ya. Give me the in-game size, if possible.

I believe this is the one you mean.
Is it? If it is not, I have a bigger sized one.

Alrighty, here ya go man. 16 colors. It's in PNG form right now, but you can just rotate it, import the palette, and copy it over in GraphicsGale.

Thanks a lot, really ^^

Sorry for the double post, but I've done some hard modifications on the color and would like to know your opinions once more.

I've used the metalish-like colors of Pieke Otaka and put the cape in a black color. Also added the portrait.
As for the red coloring on his cape and the horns fixing, I'll leave it for my weekend. I need patience to do those, and I don't have much right now.

The sprite looks unbelievably flat now, use the armor palette from either the male or female Lancers.

Pieke's colour is not bad. The problem now is your shading.

Tsk. It looks really bad.
Compare it to the original. What do you think is lacking?
Color values really needs some fixing. Go back one step.

It looks sort of like my Dark Knight Cecil, messed up colors, and dog ears.

@mav I might do them now. You'll see it once it is 'finished' once again.
@jimmyjw88 How could my shading possibly the problem if I only changed his colors?
@MiKeMiTchi Personally, I believe he is lacking dark colors, but if I follow my own tastes again I'll end up with another blackened sprite.
@CidIII As a matter of fact, it is your DK Cecil with messed up colors. The 'ears' I'll try to correct when I have time to do it; probably on Sunday.

EDIT: actually, I'm giving this up. I just don't give a damn anymore. Anyway, if anyone wants to try to continue this one, here's the spr:[attachment=0:32qb89vv]JudgeGabranthunfinished.spr[/attachment:32qb89vv]
The spritesheet is the same as the one I posted about 5 posts earlier.

I dunno why you're giving up, but good luck on whatever your next project is.

Don't give up on what we've said. Make them an inspiration to make your work better.
(wishes Asmo was here..)

Yeah don't give up, yeah it's hard at first; but, I've seen tremendous progress made in topics just like this, through criticism and help. I've seen beginners way worse off than you improve tenfold as the learn about colors (which can be the most important part), and shading.

Just keep with it, sure I was a little harsh, but never give up.

Your colors probably got messed up if you did a bucket fill or replacement on my DK Cecil sprite, because when I made it I didn't really know how to do different colors, and a lot of the blue are very very similar and most paint programs cannot distinguish them (such as Gimp) and dye the whole thing that color, which is where I think your sprite probably lost a lot of it's depth, as for the horns, try reshaping them a bit. I went through several (and I mean like 9-10) different horn arrangements and I still never achieved one that I'm happy with, just keep with it, envision what you want and do your damnedest to create it and if you can't post what you have and get critiqued and try again!

You picked a very challenging sprite to do as your first project or one of your first whichever.

Yeah, don't give up. This help you improve.

Give up.


I agree with CidIII, this was too complicated to begin with. To get better at this you need to ascend slowly and gradually; taking on something too advanced to your skills will only get you frustration.

It's like if someone who never got past from middle school skipped all the way to college, and then got fusilated in the first rounds of classes. Not to be taken offensively, but you've gotta have patience to go through it, and never expect to clear it in one shot. We all go throught the same stages anyway, the only thing that varies is when.

You have a point Smash, but I disagree. (peace)
In college, there are also times when something way too advanced compared to your skills will meet your way.
Just.. do not be afraid to FAIL, rafaelterras.

But, yeah, you need to work on it slowly, but make sure that in the end, you will have
NO REGRETS or whatsoever in your decision. Start with the basics, then as time flows, you might
have another chance to finish this again.

You can give this up, but don't tell us you're going to give up just because others don't like your work.

Quote from: "MiKeMiTchi"But, yeah, you need to work on it slowly, but make sure that in the end, you will have
NO REGRETS or whatsoever in your decision. Start with the basics, then as time flows, you might
have another chance to finish this again. :wink:

just to mention an example,someone who came with the same story as you,Seushiro also tried to do very complicated things that always ended messy,so Asmo (I think) told him to learn the basics before rushing into complicated things and he did it,he become a skilled spriter and I suspect that he wanted to re-do one of his forst sprites (Squall),since he did an awesome portrait for him,Jimmy has a similar story,but instead of doing sprites,he asked for them,someone to do it by himself and here he is

i'm guessing u've got something in your mind what this character should look like, but it's just not coming out how u want it to look?
a lot of good points were brought up, and i agree that u shouldn't give up.  it might be a good idea to try a less ambitious sprite edit first, get used to the whole process, then come back to this one when you're ready.
if u can get a pretty solid rotation of this character it will really set you up to do all the more complicated frames.  that being said, that also means the first step is essentially the hardest.
do you have any other edits in the works?

hate to be one of those double posters.......bu~t.....
[attachment=0:3u13t75z]Gabranth - idea - Atma.png[/attachment:3u13t75z]
here's an idea i had for ur sprite.  don't know if it's what u were thinking.

Helm on the sideview looks nice, on front, not soo good. First thing that you made and other who attempted to do Gabranth: He consists of THREE basics colors, silver, black, and red, rest are shades.  This one is far too dark, and isn't working, not enough color variation. And again, I really like the helm on side view, heh.

LOL, i didn't even bother checking what he looks like.    i haven't bothered finishing that game and had forgotten who he even was.