The VG Resource

I've been working on a big project for my current and upcoming D&D campaign.

I had my campaign all written out, but I need miniatures to represent the PC's, NPC's, and monsters. Brand miniatures were too expensive so I had to come up with something on my own. I saw paper miniatures all over the interweb, I thought "That's a great idea, and cheap!" but all the paper mini series didn't quite have the variety I wanted. Now I'm to the point of making my own. I'm more than capable of drawing them, but I would need to do them digitally and I do not own a tablet (plus I'm horrible with scale). I decided to use Fire Emblem sprites as my miniatures, along with a mix of other games. I'm pretty good at editing sprites, and all the minis would be to scale.

I currently have a large collection of partially and fully customized sprites. I print them out and put them on a stand and WALLAH! Homemade miniatures.

Here are a few. Not my favorites but this is our current adventuring party.


From left to right... Adran Half-Elf Wizard, Carric Elven Ranger, Xath Human Paladin, Keothi Goliath Warden, ??? Gnome ???, Flint Shifter Barbarian, and ??? Dragonborn Warlord. (The people I play with don't make it very clear on their characters -__-')

I'll post more if you guys wish to see the development of this mini series I have going on, and if you guys want, I'll get some pictures up of the actual miniatures when I get a hold of a camera.

I know I'm not great at spriting. My structure, shading, and texture need A LOT of work. Tips and pointers are welcome.

Carric came across an undead dire wolf and mad it his pet. Its just a "what if" if he ever decided to mount it. Made a mount for my paly Xath for laughs.

Neither are terribly creative or original. Just some different color pallets for the wolf monsters from sacred stones and great knight horse.

Most notably is the selout (usage of different outline colours), some outlines have much less contrast to the inside pixels than others (for example, compare the first one's arms and hair). The light source isn't too obvious either and some parts even look pillow shaded (second guy's closer arm). Generally, the colour contrasts could be more even (fourth guy's body, little contrast between the two brightest shades, quite high contrast to the blueish inlines).

Some enemies I've pulled together. Death knight(black) mounted/unmounted is fully custom, death knight(green) fully custom, Succubi mostly custom with basic head swaps, and a beholder that has minor customs.

I think most of those sprites could do with some increase in contrast because as now, it's kinda blurred. Considering your goal with those, I don't think you'll mind having edits, but if you ever want to get better at pixelling and doing custom work too, be sure to practice and listen to what we say.

(11-18-2012, 07:14 AM)Tae Kwon Doug Wrote: [ -> ]I think most of those sprites could do with some increase in contrast because as now, it's kinda blurred. Considering your goal with those, I don't think you'll mind having edits, but if you ever want to get better at pixelling and doing custom work too, be sure to practice and listen to what we say.

Oh, of course. I'm all for improving, and if I understand the advice I'll imply it.

Quite honestly though, it doesn't matter how good or detailed they are when I print them out. Even the most contrasted colors blend together when printed. These minis are quite small.

I will however fully utilize your all's advice if my group decides to do sessions online and we have to write a program for grid based fighting.

Thanks for the replies, guys. Its much appreciated. =D

Edited Catastrophe from FFV does work really well as a beholder, but I hope he's not a pain for you to cut out. That is unless you're just cutting around the images and not right up to the lines themselves.

(11-18-2012, 11:14 AM)TomGuycott Wrote: [ -> ]Edited Catastrophe from FFV does work really well as a beholder, but I hope he's not a pain for you to cut out. That is unless you're just cutting around the images and not right up to the lines themselves.

I did a fully custom beholder and it looked HORRIBLE xD. Yeah, I saw that monster and it was just perfect. I threw out the old one and did a bit of editing on the catastrophe. Exacto knife straight up. I give a slight white outline though, only because the outlines are too jagged to cut on. I've made over a hundred minis so far. Its a pain but it makes D&D a more exciting expereince.