Goodbye Scorpio...

Have some hideous oekaki fanart of Cardinal Alphonse Delacroix and Cuchulainn the Impure. Nasty fellow, but love the Scorpio demon design, so disgusting.

I know I'm missing a few deaths, such as Gustav, Bart and umm... people we suppose to be dead. Maybe later. I don't even know who's next, who's next? Anyone?

Since it will be a while before the next deaths, I guess I'll do some of the living characters now, hah hah.

Malak and Rafa!!!

Note: READ PREVIOUS ENTRY if you haven't already!

Oh man, the exploding frog always surprises me!

Anyways, fixing to get me the two most useless characters in the game, Malak and Rafa. I don't hate them, but man, it is difficult to justify keeping them in your battle party. Who here keeps Malak and Rafa? My brother always gets rid of Malak and keeps Rafa for treasure hunting purposes. I believe Squenix upped their heaven and hell abilities in the PSP version, though, so maybe they'll be more useful. Still, Rafa killed one of my warriors who was caught in the mantra range in the first battle against Malak. Ungrateful!

I do love how Ramza's super helpfulness. He always tries to save everyone, even complete strangers. I mean, that's how you get new members, am I right? I thought Rafa was especially insightful in how she says Ramza isn't just out to honor his family name, but to correct what's wrong in the world, to the best of his ability. That's the charisma of a true-born leader for you. Plus it doesn't hurt that my battle party has about 300k gold in their pockets.

Does anyone else think Orran and Malak and Rafa come from the same ethnicity? I haven't played the other games (namely XII or Vagrant Story), but I don't know the name of the darker-skinned ethnicity in Ivalice. Is that even significant? *shrugs shoulders* I mean, there are no numou or viera around...

OH NOOOOOO...

ごめんなさい! ;_;

I accidentally linked to a Japanese fansite that wasn't supposed to be publicly linked (I think?). Tonight I was checking back with all the sites again and it turns out that one webmaster didn't allow free-linking from a blog such as mine. So if you read the last entry and linked to kif, please take down your link, just to be safe. Thanks! And SOOOOORRRY!!! I didn't know.

Japanese fanart sites: part 2

Gaea Studio by Mos (Chinese)
Tactics and XII. Elegant lineart with a beautiful painterly style, reminiscent of antique watercolors. One of my favorites, from China.


Wistarial by Touru
Tactics and Advanced. Gorgeous set of b/w oekaki with striking and stylized flair, lots of pairings.


Mitsuboshi by 星風スイ
Tactics Advanced and XII art with a little Tactics thrown in. Humorous and lovely watercolor style, very unique.


Tabiuta by 東雲みと
Tactics. Tons of art, both lovely and cute. Lots of the Beoulve siblings, which I highly approve of.


花斑月 by かのこ
Tactics, Advanced, XII. Lots of fanart from all 3 series, sensual and softly colored. I wish I could be this prolific and talented!


+ silk + by ふじやひよこ
Tactics, Advanced, Advanced 2. Lots of adorable art and comics! Check out the log and the chocobos made of food, there is so much cuteness on this site, it hurts.


趣味端座 by konton
Tactics, Advanced, Advanced 12. A very clean, sharp style with amazing coloring. Covers many FF series in a signature look.

Lusoooo!!!

Heya fans, I haven't been updating much because things have been hectic, but now I have Luso into my party! He's a cutie, with his little notebook and super bright clothes! And I love his CG introduction, Ramza's all like, "I'M A NINJA, I WILL SAVE YOU!" My baby's all grown up. *wipes tear*

I got the Dark behemoth into my party, hoping to breed it and poach some cool items. The King behemoth died last, so I couldn't poach it, even though my samurai had poach ability on, so that was annoying. They'll pop up later, I'm sure. Right now I'm running errands, finding treasure, and leveling Luso up, even though he is already super strong!

I'll continue my "death-count" oekaki sessions and site pimps later, but this week is going to be hell-week, so it might not be for a while. Sorry!

Delita + Ovelia

The CG scene with Delita and Ovelia is full of drama. How many times does he use the word "endeavor" anyways? "Try" is a real word as well, you know. But in all seriousness, it was really sweet and just a little chilling for him to speak to Ovelia in such a way, that manipulative bastard. I would fall for it, too. No doubt.

http://www.unowen.net/tegaki/uentries.php?u=13506
Sketch of Ramza in his chapter 2, 3 armor. I like how he's still wearing thigh-high boots, but hey, at least he looks like a male now and less like a trap.

I heard the Japanese version doesn't get voice acting, that is kind of weird, I think. It would be like watching a silent animated movie, I would get the feeling that I was going deaf, hah hah. I mean, why didn't they get Japanese seiyuu to act it?

Orbonne Monastery: Damn you, Wiegraf!

WHAT THE HELL, I had to restart the battle 3 times. Yes, I'm a girl and I suck at strategy, but come on, I had 3 healers and Ramza was a dragoon, punching away with his lance at a safe distance. How could I possibly die? VERY EASILY.

I finally had to follow the FAQ's suggestion of bringing in Agrias and aggro at Wiegraf before his bitches got to the rest of my party. Ramza still got KOed, but because the enemy was concentrating on killing either him or my healers, whoever they could reach, Agrias managed to slip through and she basically hunted down Wiegraf like the cunning fox he is. Unless your party is over-leveled, this may be the best strategy to use in story-battles with a boss. Have a super-powerful decoy with a lot of HP take down the boss before Ramza's timer runs out. There was no stealing possible in this episode, let me tell you that.

But finally, I am out of Orbonne Monastery. Isilud's fanatic wildly shouting self has taken Alma away and Wiegraf has made an unholy pact with a fluffy blue and white sheep with no eyes. Now Malak, the outlander, has commanded me to go to Riovanes. But before I do, to level up we go! Ramza, you can take a break, you've gotten killed enough.

Orbonne Monastery: Isilud, stop, it hurts!

Well, you should know how I feel about the re-translation of the names by now. I feel that "Nightblade" is even less relevant than "Knightblade", but whatever.

This was a hard battle before and it didn't get any easier now. I had to restart the first time because I chose to put Ramza in as a ninja, and I'm sorry if you like ninjas, but that was a weaksauce move. Then I figured dragoons was the way to go for Ramza, and we just barely made it out alive. I really like, and by like I mean hate, Isilud's fantastic Jump/Concentrate ability. You shouldn't be able to jump that high in a library vault!!!

I decided to soldier through and kill as many of the other knights and archers before attacking Isilud to end the battle. Such a decision is usually foolhardy, but my own dragoon and archer managed to pick off a few enemy soldiers before Ramza charged in and cut Isilud down to critical. Whew! I think the thing that helped the most was Isilud not being able to attack on his first move (the first move of the battle), because he was able to attack first on my previous attempt and just slaughtered both Ramza and a healer in no time. Clever AI.

One more battle to go! What a marathon this is going to be. I'm sure Agrias, Mustadio and the rest are going to be asking for overtime.

doujinshi: Brave Commander by K.A.R.

Circle: KAR
Year: 1997
Pages: 26 pages
Characters: Ramza, Agrias, Mustadio, Delita, Ovelia, Alma
Rating: PG (a little blood)

Summary: A very pretty and clean style, quite detailed. The first story is my favorite, a gag story of Agrias getting decked out in dancer attire. A few more with Agrias beating everyone up, and then another funny one about Ovelia's married life. The last story is of course, about the epilogue, very sad.

page
Ovelia, now queen and married to Delita, is watching Delita sleep, and unfortunately what he says in his sleep pisses her off!!! *cracks up*

English links and more Ivalice cosplay!

My friend and I dressed as Moogles from Final Fantasy 12 and Tactics. Here I am as a gunner in my terrorist sniper ensemble! I have no idea why we decided to do these costumes, but they turned out really super cute for being ghetto and crafty. I made those bullets out of cardboard, paint and tape.

So here are some English links for those of you who habla ingles. Not a huge collection, as you can see. I am aware of a few English-speaking FFT artists, but their presence outside of Deviantart and Livejournal is minimal so I don't want to link their stuff right now...
FFTactics: Livejournal community for Final Fantasy Tactics, duh. Intermittent activity.
Ivalice_fans: news about the latest Ivalice Alliance games and its Deviantart club.
Ivalice Atelier: community for fanart based on Ivalice and classic art!

Ultima Edition: graphics and info for almost the entire game (1st version.)

Milk, please!

Drawing from Tegaki-e. I like to know who orders milk at a bar. That seems like ultimate in suspicion to me!

My brother has the PSP today, so I'm playing some Tactics Advance at the moment. I'm at the last battle now, but I haven't finished all the missions yet, so I'm wasting several years waiting for the right ones to pop up. Very annoying...

Insanity at Orbonne Monastery pt. 1

Urgh, last night I started the first round at Orbonne Monastery and it was killer! I had to restart a couple of times because I stupidly left some characters equipped with random "optimize" items. Finally I forced myself to stick with the battle and eventually won with everyone intact.

First off, the 3 dragoons were seriously powered up with mythril spears and of course, my healers kept on dying in one blow even though we were several levels ahead. Not just that, but one of them kept charming Agrias and making her do Judgment Blade on us. Good thing Ramza knocked some sense back into her with some shurikens. And you know what, I never use time mages myself, but they have some irritating spells that almost always work on my team. Grah!!!

Slowly but steady, healing and reviving at every turn, I managed to get rid of the time mages and chemist. Ramza and my white mage successfully ganked some nice armor while Agrias went around and collected crystal abilities, hah hah. Overall, I admit the AI was a worthy challenger. Looking forward to fighting Isilude and Wiegraf in the next battles.


He looks pretty fabulous with his fur sleeves, hah hah. Good old Gaff, I liked his attitude, all full of sassafrass. But a failure in the end.

Japanese fanart sites

This is for my own reference, some banner links to Japanese sites with Tactics/Advance/XII fanart. I was hoping to find other overseas fanart sites, but apparently not. For any of you who want to view these sites, have Japanese fonts available and of course, don't take any artwork w/out permission. The last thing I want is for these sites to close down because of my linking to them.


Ensemble by Azryu
Tactics, Advance, Advance 2. Very cute artwork faithful to the original style, mostly concerning gameplay, story characters and original generics.


Roda de Estrela by Nasu
Tactics, Advance, 12. A gorgeous unique style of painting, some cute stuff as well.


Astro Scope by 弓月 愛
Tactics. Hasn't been updated in a while, but has a large gallery of beautiful art faithful to the style. Also contains flash and flash games?


Hanairomoyo by 昼田
Tactics, Advance, 12. Elegant anime style fanart with cel-shading. Only a couple of Tactics, some 12, but very cute and purty!


Sasuraiyokotyou by Watami
Tactics, Advance. Adorable fanart, with beautifully painted cast pictures and quite a few cute drawings of the generic classes.


Toritoto by Hana
Tactics, Advance, Advance 2. Lovely and adorable painted/CG style, I think the the 10 year anniversary comic is the cutest thing to have ever cuted.


BUZZ by 極
Tactics. Amazing b/w sketches and painterly style. Lots of SD and AU art of the less-popular characters as well! Chibi-Weigraf blows my mind...


cor by 小町あんこ
Tactics, Advance. The front page has tons of cute and pretty fanart from various games in a vibrant and original style.

Battle at Lionel Castle Postern

I'm not sure what a postern is. This battle, we fought Head Inquisitor Zalmour and his knights and monks. Alma accompanied us, and of course, did her awesome Aegis spell on Ramza that unfortunately did not last the whole time. I did get her killed once, whoops. But overall, an easy battle, since we were so juiced up on powerful accessories and Zalmour kept missing his cure spells. I mostly took my time stealing diamond helms from the knights as well as Zalmour's white robe and elven cloak. Ramza finally had good compatibility with someone and stole Zalmour's items with no trouble at all.

As it turned out, some of those items could be purchased after the battle, but oh well, thousands of gold I didn't have to spend.

I am at a quandary right now in the development of my team's abilities. Everyone is starting to jump around classes with the exception of 2 mages and of course, Mustadio and Agrias. It is better to keep them on one path so they can become expert at it, but at the same time, I like learning other abilities. I just don't want to waste my time if I'm going to be kicking a few people out to make room for the story characters on down the line. Decisions, decisions!

"She saved my life, you know..."

Tietra Heiral. I had originally intended this to be an artblog as well, so I am trying to memorialize as many of the characters as I can, in my own... unique... style. I clearly need to plan my pictures out better.

Celestial Stasis!

Just finished the battle at Gollund in which you have to protect Orran. I kinda botched this one up and missed stealing the orichalcum. At least I managed to get the mythril guns and avant gauche. My problem seems to be that Ramza as an Aries has terrible compatibility with every enemy in the entire game, ever. And I should have increased the jump of my team, since I knew it was going to be a roof battle. Oh well!

Story-wise, I like Orran (why did they change the spelling?!), but this battle always amused me for being kinda... pointless, at least at first. I guess it was important that Orran meet Ramza at least once, before the epilogue happened and all.

doujinshi: TIME AND REALITY by tsuki no dango

Title: TIME AND REALITY (Toki to Jitsu?)
Circle: tsuki no dango (to the best of my knowledge)
Year: 2000
Pages: 34 pages
Characters: Ramza, Cloud, Elmdor, Delita, Ovelia, Alma, generics, some Vagrant Story art
Rating: PG

Summary: This is a fairly nice doujinshi with a lot of guest art in the middle, kinda amateurish style but probably better than my art, at least. The first 2 stories are pretty hilarious gag ones concerning Ramza's unique ability and then Cloud being stupid, it's great. The last story is longer, angsty and of course, about the epilogue. I do wish I could read it though, it seems like it has some good dialogue going on!

Page 1!
Basically Ramza is "Cheer"ing his teammates on, and they clearly do not want to be sped up, hah hah.

Anyways... I just defeated a flock of chocobos at Barias Tor, one of the hardest battles you can find, I think. Little bastards tried to take me out! Well, I finally got myself a red chocobo, so hah.