Official art in the future?

[VincentASM is too important to have a messed up name]

A while ago somebody pointed out that the Fire Emblem Museum section of the official Fire Emblem World site could possibly feature The Sacred Stones, and thus character artwork from that game.

I myself was very sceptical (and thought Path of Radiance would feature instead of it), but now it looks like that this will be the case.

The Museum has updated with parts of Sword of Seals and, if you check the internal pages, you can make out the blacked-out navigation buttons have Blazing Sword and The Sacred Stones (in Japanese obviously).

Seeing as all the prior featured games included (more or less) all the character artwork, can we expect the same for The Sacred Stones? This is coming from the same game only has ~13 character artworks known to exist (even when linking with Path of Radiance).

Of course, we'll know in 3-6 months time. However, discussion on this board is pretty much non-existent :S

[DMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA JonnyJon]

I'm pretty sure that the few images that were ever released were all that ever existed in that state of "completion". Everyone else was probably just worked off of sketches. If they show anything, I'm betting it will just be the handful of portraits that we saw in the PoR gallery.

[atumbabod]

Yay being the person to point it out!

Do we have any verification that those were all the complete sketches that existed for SS?  Yes, there is brevity in the PoR gallery, yet we know of at least one character left out (Valter) since the galleries didn't include villains.  Even if they were the only art available at the time, who's to say N or IS won't contract the artists for the rest of the group afterwards?

Assuming the rest of the stuff from FE6 is presented over the next two months (it seems they're splitting this one into thirds), there would still be at least five months to finish what wasn't covered.  The character pool in this case is a bit shallow, so I would imagine they could be covered in that amount of time. 

What say you, Dale?  What insight can you bring concerning such a potential task?

[DMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA JonnyJon]

If there was more high-quality official art that existed already, we would have seen it before. There's no reason for them to hold that much promotional artwork back. Like I said, the rest of the characters likely exist only as quick concept sketches (although I for one wouldn't mind seeing them at all).

Even if they were the only art available at the time, who's to say N or IS won't contract the artists for the rest of the group afterwards?

Too much to spend contracting someone for a very hurried game that was fairly poorly recieved on both sides of the Pacific.

[Cold Popcorn]

Actually it sold all right, despite FE fans not liking it that much. Either way, it's good that I'll eventually get artwork for characters I actually like that I could use in my banners and such.

[Ice Dragon]

Well, they've got 5 months to finish working on the remaining arts, then.

Another thing to note is that FE10's artwork wasn't completed in time for its JP release, either, making inferences from what we currently know. (Namely, that a large amount of in-game art was from FE9 (Caineghis, Giffca, and the Dark Knight come to mind immediately), and that an art gallery was not given for the JP release.) Though, admittedly, FE10 had a much better reception than FE8 did and wasn't as rushed as FE8 seemed.

[Dazuro]

If there was more high-quality official art that existed already, we would have seen it before. There's no reason for them to hold that much promotional artwork back.

Nintendo has a history of holding back official art, though.

Just look at Metroid: Zero Mission...  Hell, that was by IS too, I believe.  They only published two or three pieces of official art, one of which was only available from their press-only site.  Yet there was other art produced, as seen in the Jap. boxart and manual.  And even those were mostly interchangeable arrangements of other art on one of two backgrounds with text, implying that they weren't just drawn as boxart--they were just holding back on releasing art for some reason.

I know that's only one example, but anyone who's ever tried making sigs and wallpapers of Nintendo products should know what I mean about awesome art being way too hard to find, if available at all.

[Cold Popcorn]

Retro Studios (Metroid Prime series) is pretty open with their artwork, and the concept art too. But that would be the exception rather than the rule.