This is literally just a quick, dirty and utilitarian solution to trying to craft personal silhouettes (to represent whose turn is currently active during battle) for every single one of your custom portraits with a catch-all image that is unlikely to ever be obscured and ineffective.


To use this image, simply name it "pcl" (that's a lower case "L" there) without quotations and drop it into any custom image folder in PICTUREGATE. For ease of mass use you can even hit ctrl+c on the image after it's appropriately named and then ctrl-v it into every folder from 01 to 24 so it's already present in advance or replaces any prior image you might have prepared but were not satisfied with.

Ideally, this will keep you from worrying about the headache of sizing and aligning silhouettes ever again. If I come up with more (and nicer) standardised images, I will edit this and attempt to add them.

A compromise between the sheer economy of Mr. Subtle, found below, and the OG Big Bland Boi above; this is a Big Bland Boi adjusted to 50% opacity so the obnoxious factor is mitigated to some degree.


As the game already adds a mild transparency effect to character silhouettes, this should go the extra mile to decrease the overall loudness of the icon.

If the Big Bland Boi gives you too much of what's on the tin, there is a more nuanced alternative.


Mr. Subtle here is positioned in such a way that it should always display at the highest point possible, so as not to be hidden behind even the tallest character portrait allowed by the game engine.

Unfortunately, this means that for some characters in the lineup (looking at you position 4) it will be less visible as a result of the game's action windows (where fight, defend, skill, spell, etc. will be displayed to indicate which action a character will take/took last round) and this may or may not be a dealbreaker.

Trivia!: This was actually my first attempt at a catch-all for this problem, but the earlier mentioned issue with visibility grated on me too much not to do something about it, leading to the rise of the Big Bland Boi as a scorched earth option. But because I already rigged it up, I thought I would share with you, dear reader.

Bonus: You may notice that when you load your game while using PICTUREGATE images that they no longer display. This could be a temporary bug, but the fix is relatively simple; after loading your game proceed to the Leader's Room and go to the Manage option for characters, then select any character from your roster and select Edit, then confirm changes (whether you made any or not) to restore all of the portraits to normal. The game may be in a state where it has to do a check of the PICTUREGATE folder on each game start before it can remember what's inside.

(Edit Note: The bug should now be fixed as of April 16th, but in the event you ever encounter this problem again for some reason, the instructions above may still prove useful.)

Extra bonus: Using this method will also allow you to update your PICTUREGATE files in real time for testing purposes without closing the game itself. So, if you add extra portraits to the folder while the game is open simply return to the Leader's Room and repeat the above steps to "register" the new content.

Wow!