The new one looks proportionally closer to that reference and reads more like an adult proportionally I think. Assuming it's not a bendy-straw style you're going for I'm not that fond of the U leg or the back though, so I went out to help those a bit. Am not a master and all that, but-



I drew a bit of a skeleton on your thing guessing how it'd go, but it's probably not proportionally correct because I didn't want to overwrite yours. (and also because I am not actually very experienced in anatomy)
Although I can't find how the parts of the spine contribute to flexing forwards, it's definitely not one part making a 90 degree bend. ^^;



-Based on trying to pose myself for a minute or so, the supporting arm (here left) would be straight resting on the hand instead of the lower arm if the shoulders are at the height of the knee.
-If they're leaning that far back the supporting arm would have to angle further back rather than next to their side. This has the added benefit of separating it from the torso!
-I mostly removed the sharp corner from the torso bend and it looks a bunch more natural. I think.
-The leg comes into something of a point at the knee (at this resolution anyway), and the 3/4? angle means the thigh obscures the calf partially.
-Bent the elbow a bit just so the arm isn't a straight line, but that can be a matter of taste.

I should probably have kept the left leg as long as you had it, but that's because I only did the posing after editing.

Hope this helps a bit.

Local bat returns to do pixelly stuff after missing last year's. Probably not going to be attempting animation again though.

I hope this list is workable in that it's maybe a more cohesive than previous years'

Likes:

-Bats
-Insects, sea creatures...pretty much every single animal actually
-Happy and/or cute stuff
-Anthropomorphic anything
-Cold & aquatic environments, really everything that wouldn't be awfully hot and sweaty
-Serene things and spaces
-Cozy, kind and nice things
-Happy/Optimistic stuff

-Glass
-Art Nouveau, Baroque etc
-Needlessly over-complicated things
-Minoan and (the course of) ancient Greek art
-Those silly cross section things of buildings and vehicles with little peeps in them, doing all sorts of things. If you know what I mean.


Dislikes:

-Spiderwebs
-Pop culture references
-Not all that fond of the standard fantasy setting maybe, see below

Misc:

-I appreciate nude things (statues etc) and people if you want to, but don't feel obligated.
-I think if there's something I would like to get across it's that I appreciate people getting creative and inventing things. My issue with fantasy stuff is that the elves and ogres and goblins thing is a bit...easy to rely on the tropes I guess.
-That being said you don't have to invent an entire universe for this. Small fragments of strange worlds are cool too. :3
-I don't have a particular preference for setting or time period (In other word, sci-fi/spacey stuff is cool too. I just happened to only list old things.)

From the depths of procrastination, I rise to enter once again, this time a tad less ambitious than last year hopefully.

I think this'll do. Pick and mix to you liking:

Likes:

-Bats
-Lamprey
-The Portugese man-of-war
-Anomalocaridids
-Spiders
-Insects
-Sea creatures in general
-Pretty much every single animal actually
-Happy and/or cute stuff
-Cold environments
-Aquatic environments
-Baroque
-Rococo
-Pipe organs
-Anthropomorphic anything
-Art Nouveau
-Needlessly overcomplicated mechanical things
-Floating islands
-Windmills
-Skeletons
-Nazca culture, pottery especially



Dislikes:

-Spiderwebs
-Brutalism
-Internet memes
-Plaid
-Pop culture references
-Not all that fond of the standard fantasy setting

To be honest, I suspect there is little audience for this here if you were looking for one.


I don't have time or energy for any edits (at least right now), but here are some general things:

-I read the character's arms as its back at first, and then thought it had no arms. Might want to see what you can do about that, but I think it's partially to do with the hand overlapping the thigh so smoothly.

-If you're intending to have a resolution of 256x144 you're severely overestimating the amount of space you have in your mockups (which are at famicube resolution, so which are you using?):


-What restrictions do you have in general? is the square canvas meant for one room or multiple? What are the colour limits? Things like that.

-Beside the milk machine I think all the graphics could use some improvement. Most things aren't shaded, and a few designs don't make much sense (the treasure chest in an otherwise relatively modern building, the torches on shields(?), the various brick sizes for the blues wall).

-An Itch.io board thread is probably not the best place to store/post your source code, even if only because posts would get very long.

As far as NES restictions go, is the portrait face going to be drawn with aid of sprites? The dark orange certainly fits into a background palette but I don't see a way for the yellow and white to fit unless you'd use multiple similar palettes. That would, I think, be somewhat wasteful.



I think the dark blue can replace a lot of the black around the helmet (on my screen the smaller bits are obscured by the contrsat between the light blue and black). This is also the case for the overworld sprite, it is very difficult to read at 1x. I also think the asymmetrical helmet looks more like hair (possibly more of a case that many graphics use such a short-hand?).