This was a small project I accomplished over a long span of spare time I had over my gap year—time I took away from my studies at York University for personal reasons that hampered my ability to commit as much as I would have like to.
The project was simple, but its purpose requires some slight background knowledge.
Fire Emblem Heroes, anagrammatically known as FEH, is a mobile spin-off of the long running Fire Emblem series. In it, characters and the many appearances they take throughout their stories can be "summoned" and added as playable characters.
In one of its many games, a character named Byleth, appears from the Fire Emblem: Three Houses game. A variant of the same character appears in a more possessed form the character takes in a spin-off the original game—accurately introduced during the mobile spin-off's annual Fallen Heroes event.
On the left is the character's default appearance as they appear in Fire Emblem Heroes, depicted by Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia artist, 廣岡政樹Hirooka Masaki. On the right, is the form the character takes in Fire Emblem: Three Hopes, depicted in the mobile spin-off by accredited video game artist, 左Hidari.
I sought out to "restore" the possessed version of the character to their more normal self through the use of Adobe Photoshop, naimly through the use of the Patch, Spot Healing brush, Brush, and Eraser tools.
The primary issue I faced was reconstructing certain parts of the character's body and attire that was increasingly complex. Other elements of the character's outfit, like the cape and pauldron, were easy to replicate and fix using the tools aforementioned.
To remedy this issue, I relied heavily on the Patch and Healing Brush tool to replicate certain textures like the character's signature tights which bear a striking, specific pattern.
The finished comparison. On the left is the original art, with my final, edited version on the right.
Replicating the character's hair and eye colour was done through careful manipulation of the element's Curves, Hue/Saturation, and Exposure.
The character, Byleth, as they appear in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, in comparison to my edit.
The edit was finalized using the character's original artwork as a guide, while also bearing respect to 左Hidari's artwork and overall style.
Fire Emblem is a series that I hold dear to my heart, and 左Hidari is one of my favourite artists, having done work for my favourite game in the franchise, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. Working on this was difficult, but very rewarding, as not only did I get to work with material I have a large amount of love and respect for, but I was further reminded how much I love Photoshop.