OK, here's a first attempt at breathing. I like the look of how the legs bend, but it's a bit OTT.



Breathing attempt 2:



Better, but I'm still not sure. Any ideas for improvement would be really welcome.



AI controlled space-suit scanning left-right. I'm not sure the glint on the faceplate is doing the right thing.

This is suitably epic!

I like the style in general, but something bothers me about those streetlights. I feel like the bands of light should be curved rather than straight, in order that the light is following the laws of physics. Light radiates spherically, at least in theory.

But what happens in reality? Here's a photo of some streetlights at night:



There's quite a bit going on in those cones of light.

 - For a start, they are at right angles to the angle of the lampshade. In your image they always go straight down.

 - The edges of the cones are diffuse rather than sharp.

 - Sometimes you'll see lens flare on the light itself.

 - The light cones have an internal structure, probably caused by a combination of subtle lens flare effects and the path of light around the edges of the lampshades. As if they're extending fingers of light.

Admittedly this could be difficult to replicate exactly using the geometric lines, limited palette and lack of anti-aliasing your style demands, but I do notice that you're using glow effects around some objects (including the lamps) so there may be some wiggle room. I'd quite like to see those front two cones follow the angle of the lamps though.

If you're using Photoshop there's a gradient tool that would make short work of your gradients. You can set it to linear, radial etc. and define it in such a way as to create gradients of both color and transparency. You can also (if you're careful) create hard divisions between colors so you can achieve the effect you have here. Or you could posterize it afterwards I guess.

If you're not in Photoshop you could construct a gradient layer, where you create a large area of gradient once, then whenever you need it just copy/paste a chunk from it to another layer to carve it into the exact shape you want.

For the record I like the trees! Maybe the ones on the left could have slightly more pointy leaves to match the ones on the right?

> What's the environment for this character? That should determine how you colour them.

There will be inside and outside environments. (Futuristic exoplanet moon base, surface, caves). I may need to create different sprites for the different locations, by the sounds of it.

> In space, there's very little scattering of the light, so shadows tend to be very stark, even on rounded objects.

Great point, I'll have a play with some harder shadows. The surface will have to have some kind of atmosphere though, as there will be life, so even if it's not nitrogen/oxygen there would probably be some kind of scattering I guess.

> For the AI idle, you could have the helmet look left to right and back (or up and down) very smoothly, as the AI scans its environment. Having different idles for AI vs human would be pretty neat, and help remind the player what's going on even if the gameplay doesn't change much.

Excellent idea! Thanks.

I'll get to work on those, and a decent idle pose.

Thanks for your time!

As an aside I found that giving the shadows an angle, but making that angle different to the angle of the grass, helped "lift" the leaves from the surface.