Wow, thanks for all the C+C guys! Sorry I didn't swing back with a response yesterday, I got half caught up in gaming for the holiday and half Photoshop wanting to crash on me every ten minutes and it kinda burnt me out in the evening. (Anyone know how to fix the problem where your hotkeys stop working unless you restart PS?)

I should have clarified a little more on my goals and what the person I'm making this for wants. They make very nasty, dirty, dark techno kind of stuff (there might be a better name for that type of genre) and wanted an album cover that is the complete opposite of that, bright happy colors, sunshine, hugs and smiles.  From there they wanted a handful of fighting game-esqe characters almost like a title screen or a splash poster with one character being the Machine Girl which has a dress, gimp mask, pigtails, and a pentagram either on the mask or shirt (I didn't think I could really get that much detail on a mask) and the others being some mix of standard fighter tropes and wackiness ala Marvel vs. Capcom. That said I'm sorry I should have talked a bit more about the goals of the project but I'm going to be handing a handful of additional characters other than just the Machine Girl though I definitely agree that she should be the focal point right after the name.

I think I was just mashing at it so long recently that I forgot some regular concepts like getting rid of the jaggies and working on a better composition before I plop a bunch of characters in there. So I took a shot at hitting the jaggies which I didn't realize would be such an issue til I realized the weird shapes I made with the style so it took a little longer than I would have liked/isn't exactly perfect, but I feel like I got a lot of the curves fixed up at least. I also brought in the blue tint like adcrusher suggested though I didn't go as far into the tinny blues.



Then I started with the anti aliasing but I'm not exactly sure if I like it that clean if that makes any sense? Or maybe I should just use it sparingly where the jaggies are still looking awkward only to keep a bit of those hard edges haphazard almost like a child drawing look. Partially AA'd version:



Got some free time at work edit:

I'm not really happy with how the Machine Girl came out, I was kinda testing out poses and stuff and I guess it didn't come out quite like I envisioned it. I really want her striking some sort of wacky pose though. I may go back to the drawing board with the design for her in general but I'm not sure yet. I have some ideas to make the shirt into more of a whole dress and combine it with more of the blue or I may go with more of the anime schoolgirl style like Decroded mentioned. The pigtail color doesn't feel all that good to me, I might switch it to a pink or a purple so it looks less like leaves coming out of her head like someone had mentioned. At one point it was basically just leaves coming out of her head then I moved some shading around and it still came out wrong. Tonight when I get home I'm going to take pen to her and see if I can get some skeletons for other characters together.

Decroded, I really like the idea of adding a bit more to the background, I was considering it but was worried about overdoing it but with your edit I see some simple buildings/skyline or something can definitely be beneficial. I may also go after your thicker looking grass, I definitely battled with the grass a bit and it's nice to see a fresh look on it. Also where'd you get that cool looking garbage can?

Looks like I got a lot of work ahead of me this week, I'll be back later on!

I definitely like bush texture but maybe it doesn't need to come down as far as it does, it might be creating too much visual noise at that level. Perhaps just keep it around the top edge or only use light sprinklings of it.

Decroded: I need to stop posting these things when I'm not clear of mind and making silly uploading mistakes, sorry about that! I added a running sprite I forgot about last time.

I spent a little time over the past few days working on the Title Screen again cleaning up the crappy AA, working on giving it a bit more of a rock feel to it and I started messing with the text at the bottom, not sure where I'm going with that still though. What do you guys think?

I like the track arc but it doesn't seem to feel right in movement unless you plan on having both high and low points varying. Right now it looks like either the high points in the terrain are at both ends or the tank is being floated above the terrain the entire time. Are you planning on varying where the wheels are even more vertically to simulate it better?

In other thoughts, I love the tank design and even the cartoony bounce seemed to do it justice as much as it was panned.  Also the original "party hard" made me laugh because I accidentally made a character look like he was break dancing a couple days ago and it ended up a "party hard" animated gif. Wasn't my best story, I know...