Final Fantasy Hacktics

Well there's not much to say, I'm a new member here, and new to spriting anything FFT related.
Honestly, I'm just looking for a new style to play with, but I'm pretty rusty sprite wise in general, so don't expect much from me.

Protagonist from Persona 4
(http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/9586/soujifft.png)
My first attempt at this, but be a critical is you feel fit.

Also looking for ideas as to whom I should make next.

Ill start with the portrait: The character's right eye is one pixel too thick and the eyes arent shaded correctly (see normal fft port for reference). He seems very young. You've also managed to use only 12 colours, you could use some of those to shade the face and neck, then possibly 1/2 more colours for the jacket/collar (total of 16).

Sprite: the hair doesnt have a great amount of depth to it, a change of palette or extra colour could help this.

Can't really comment further because I've never played Persona 4, but its pretty good for a first attempt at fft style tbh.

Not too bad, just one rule, post everything also at 2x or 3x size. Right now its so tiny that I barely can see the details up close.

Hah, portrait needs some major fixing indeed. Twin pointed the things you have to fix.

I just got my own Persona 4, haha. I will tell you more once I know how the protagonist looks

Portrait eyes need to be reshaped. If you want innocent, childish eyes, look at Alma or the 10 year old boy or girl sprites. Right now the hair on both the sprite and the portrait don't look natural: colors are too bright and the shapes aren't done well. The back angles look fine on the sprite, but the others look like he's wearing a freaking helmet. The clothes look okay.

Pretty good first attempt, keep working on it.

(http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/1705/soujifftx2.png)

Hopefully fixed some of the problems >_>

(http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/2995/othersfft.png)
Also some previews of two others (wips) , the second being an experiment with the limits of the style.

Now, continue this your critique please.

Welcome, fellow spriter! We love seeing new faces. One thing with FFT styled sprites/ports is their style. We usually borrow from them, the styles are very hard. Some veteran spriters can come along, and help you even more. I.E Kage,

WELCOME TO FFH, WHERE SOME OF YOUR DREAMS MAY COME TRUE.

Add more "life" to the first portait. His hair in a sense seems to kind of be flat make it have some depth and vary some of the lengths like in this photo i found. Also try adding a holster (use a variation of mustadio's)


Also try making a lighter purple tint for his hair darken the outside of it up a bit right now his hair is too bright.

(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/215/e/4/Persona_3_poster_summon_by_D_JProductions.jpg)

Mando, he is doing protagnist of P4, not P3. Anyway, the portraits you did so far look way out of FFT style, use way more references, this should help you get on the right track. Hair needs some fixing as well, it is still way too flat. Use some darker shade of grays, in P4 his hair is more gray than whie too.

What about something more like this for Isaac?
(http://img573.imageshack.us/img573/8962/isaacport.png)

Though this still needs quite a lot of improvements (face and hair mainly).

Twinee's example is definately a good reference to go off of to grasp the style.

Twinees, I really got to thank you, your edit provided heaps of help. :D
(http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/7467/fftstuff.png)
Again, the second of the two is just me pushing the FFT style to it's boarders and then some.

It's a bit of a stretch to call that second portrait "FFT style" at all. Choppy shapes and lackluster shading make it look incomplete at best. Only take from existing portraits at this point--you don't need to create new portraits from scratch without knowing exactly what you're doing. Even the first portrait needs help. Twinees's version had some good updates, but the face shape needs help, the hair is a mess, and the colors are just plain ugly.

Your ambition is admirable, you just need your spriting skills to develop a bit more.

You took Twinees' port and managed to fuck it up again somehow.
(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8117/11791222.png)

Hmm yeah, ports are the hardest, not many can do them well.
Remember to use existing colors/shading techniques and ports in general.

Just take pieces from existing portraits, it's much easier and you can still make some great looking stuff.

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=5338.0
(http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/8962/isaacport.png)

I have to thank you again, twinees, and smash for his helpful tutorial.

So I present...
(http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/2559/linketnablah.png) (http://img683.imageshack.us/i/linketnablah.png/)
(http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/9058/linketnablahx2.png) (http://img714.imageshack.us/i/linketnablahx2.png/)

Enta and Young link
The first being custom and the latter being an edit.

Of course I'm having problems with etna's hair, since right now, it's a total mess.

Quite an improvement IvanX! Enta needs some shodow under her hair also- when you fix the hair keep that in mind.

You're not balancing the shades out well enough on your portraits. Compare how blobby Enta's hair and Link's hat look to any other FFT port. It's tough to shade when you're all custom, but you need to get it down. Enta also needs more shades on her skin. Good improvements though, as Lijj said.

(http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2559/linketnablah.png) (http://img402.imageshack.us/i/linketnablah.png/)
(http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/9058/linketnablahx2.png) (http://img338.imageshack.us/i/linketnablahx2.png/)

Any better?
I've cleaned up Etna's hair and link's hat, as well as playing with the contrast on Etna's skin.

Also something completely unrelated

How to say it.... Your style is somewhat "cartoonish", the hat on Link was perfect, very FFT-like, you have made it plain, and very cartoonish. Same goes for Etna, we had a great looking portrait for her somewhere, IIRC Jupi did it, if you could find it, you would see how she should look. It's still better than your first portraits ofcourse.

Wait a sec Kage, that Link portrait looks pretty damn good, except for the hat like you said. Needs shading on his high forehead as well. I think you could use this with my Link, well if you want to...

So I tried something different with link's hat.
Went backwards process-wise with Etna's hair.
And played around and made two other characters
1st being "wut is this I don't even"
and the second obviously a knight.

I'm tired now.
Sleep time,
ciao,
later,
bye.

Nice improvements of the shading of young links hood. Etna still needs a lot of work with the hair, keep at it though I think you are going in the right direction. First it was a bit pillowy, now it is too animish.

Alright, you gotta take pieces from existing portraits. Custom creations take so much work. You're not ready for this yet. I know it sounds harsh, but you have to do this. Look at the shading styles and the general shapes of your latest two creations. Now compare them to existing portraits. They're way off.