What the-- I tried that and wasn't happy, but now you did it and I *am* happy with the result! Haha!

Yeah, stray pixels... I still use them sometimes but they can look completely disconnected from everything else and just seem to be floating there. Good edit, I'll incorporate that. Thanks, cels!

The 32px portrait is actually Seinruhe's, I just added like 5 pixels to it to change the chin from a butt to... a different kind of butt. xD
I still have to work on that hair.

---

EDIT:

Eh, I think this is going to be it for portraits.
I tried a bunch of configurations for his hair, but ultimately I think that having a single dark color works better than adding brighter "strands" or highlights. Though that first one I did looked nice..... Gah, I don't know. I'll leave at that for now.



Do they look like completely different characters? Yes.
Why? Yes.

Sh*t, maybe I need to work more on the 24x24. Damn my OCD!

---

Okay, now we're done.

Thanks for the edits, guys.

One thing I'm trying to avoid with the hair, especially (and failing so far), is to have things that are too regular. Repetition, basically. So later today (hopefully) I'll rework the hair to see if I can keep the overall silhouette yet make the locks of hair more uneven... Maybe two on one side, and three on the other...

I *think* I'm going to try to keep it dark, though, with just a bit of a sheen as to better match those few pixels on the Player sprite yet still trying to give it some illusion of volume.

On that super sexy and smooth chin butt, I think I could even do the, um, cut shaped like a "T" such as:


Dunno if I'm going to keep it. But it's cool, I'm considering it. I'll let that idea ferment some more.

@cels, I think I could even remove those few reddish-brown pixels on his cheeks... Maybe keep a couple near the eyes... Decisions, decisions.
But that looks cleaner.

Yeah, the ... how am I going to call those? The black shadow lines underneath his cheeks on the 16px version look too deep, and he's looking too old. I'll try to make his face smoother. I did that super frickin' quick as I realized games such as Castlevania 3 use 16px wide (actually 16x24px, just checked) portraits, though there they do serve a very specific purpose there, that I don't have here. Mine so far is just for decoration.

Though I could use the bigger one for the Start screen if not for dialogue... Hmm...

Anyways, thanks again for the edits and words of encouragement!

Character portrait (WIP)



Not sure yet if it's going to stay at the top of the screen at all times, like:



...or if it's going to be used for dialogues... Maybe it's too big to stay up there and I need to make a 16x16px version...

---

Darker hair...


16px version:


It kinda looks like he has a beard, though.

EDIT: 24px...



Lighter skintone, mebbe?

Thanks, man. While I was writing (and drawing) that I had the passing thought that I was sounding too pedantic and, I mean, I want to help and learn a bit too as I try to do that.

As for learning anatomy... For me yours seem pretty good already (and I don't claim to be a know-it-all, it's just what I know best), but if you want to dive deeper, I'd say to follow Proko's figure drawing course. The free version has a lot already, but the paid version has some extra stuff which seems useful.
A couple books that have helped me in different ways are Michael Hampton's "Figure Drawing: Design and Invention" and Frederic Delavier's "Strength Training Anatomy." The first one helps you in simplifying the human form to understand the dimensionality of ...everything and how to draw it without a model. The second one is aimed at bodybuilders, but it's a good reference for the anatomy of the muscles and bones. Especially if you like to draw buff dudes.
The 3D models will help you where the 2D drawings inside of those books won't.

I would recommend dedicating some time every day or every week to study anatomy, yes. The more you do, the more you'll improve, but it does take time. It *may* be tough in the beginning too, but if you have a good foundation in drawing simple shapes (boxes, balls, cylinders, pyramids, cones), once you learn about landmarks, the overall shapes of the muscles and their origins and insertions it gets much easier. Less guesswork, and things starts making sense. I don't know how much of it is applicable to pixel art, but it does help guide my drawings...

Alright, so, let's see what you brought today, shall we?

First off, you seem to put a lot of time and dedication on it, which is great!

Not sure if I said this before, but just in case I didn't: I like that you're getting references for the poses of your characters, which give them a certain diversity of stances and attitudes. They all seem very distinct from one another.

As for the more specific stuff...
- Girl with the hammer: Nice. Nothing to add.
- On the stonemason guy, the arm that's holding the bucket seems a little bit too thick at the bottom, near the middle. I guess the highlight should be closer to the top of the lower arm, kind of like what you did with the biceps.
- The girl drinking from the leather bag looks great. She's got a bit more in terms of hips now, which isn't neither good nor bad, but she looks more feminine. Which isn't also neither good nor bad. But it looks cool.
I love the way you did her face, by the way. The highlights give her a good amount of volume there, and the straight line from her nose to her chin work incredibly well IMHO. I just think her ankles look too thin, especially in comparison to her wrists. That part between the wrappings on her shin and her foot/shoes... I don't know, it may look different if you paint in some shoes. Still, I changed it a little bit.
Also, I tried simplifying her hair, unifying some patches of color. See if you like it:

or

Oh, and I made some changes to her right arm too, making it a bit thinner, but still trying to keep it toned.
(edit: quick under arm/armpit/chest muscle pixel massage.)

- The thing with the mother is that she looks a bit stockier in comparison with the reference. And her clothes conceal some of her femininity. If you want her to be taller and more feminine (doesn't seem to be the case, but...) you could give her a different set of clothes.
The highlights on her hair are a bit strong and tough to work with... I struggled with them for a bit and don't know if I got something better than what it was before. I brought some of the darker shades of her hair to the front to compensate and try to give it some more form.
The medallion kind of gets lost in her under..shirt? (same dark blue), so I added some black to give it a bit of a separation.



EDIT: Or...



In regards to making people chunkier than what you wanted, it may be part because of the resolution, the medium itself (?) or just style/taste. It's okay, though.

Yeah, the archer with such a helmet is weird. haha!
I'm not telling you to give him a Robin Hood kind of hat, though, buuut... It's something to consider (not that hat specifically, just some other type of head gear). Still, it's cool that you wanted to try a different angle for the helmet.

I like the quiver, but initially (zoomed out) I read that as if it were a sash blowing in the wind. Tilting that and making it look convincing may be tough, but you can try either that or lower it a tad more, so it's over his butt/leg more, and maybe tie it to the bigger belt with a smaller, thinner one. I don't know, just a thought.
I think his hand that holds the longbow looks a little weird. He should (?) be gripping it in a slighly different way, the thumb going in front of the bow. The arrow, IIRC stays rested on top of the back of the thumb before it gets shot. (in modern archery it stays on top of the bow itself, but the bow itself is shaped differently.)
Some people make the bow string with interrupted lines, which I find cool. Not just a straight "<" shape, but broken in some spots, which change as it gets animated. I don't have any references at hand, though, unfortunately.
His posture looks cool, maybe I'd change his right hand too, the one that just released the arrow, making it a bit longer. It looks short in comparison to his other one.
The foot that's resting on top of that block of masonry (or whatever it's called) looks reeeally cool. Don't get too attached to it because you may need to change it, but right now that shape looks super nice. *chef's kiss*

EDIT: Oh, you changed the color of the quiver and added a strap. That definitely helps!
Nice work with the arm reflecting on the shoulder pad.

EDIT 2: The thing with the thumb on the longbow is that you don't try to hold the bow with it, as it's veeeeery heavy.

EDIT 3: Tried to do the thing with the bowstring that I was talking about:

So with that in mind, I am trying to strategize this, to see the most effective way to go about with without taking forever to do.

I think rotoscoping would be the easiest way.
You would film yourself doing the dance (placing your camera at a certain distance to get your whole body with the least lens distortion as possible, standing in front of a neutral background), or somebody else doing the dance, then you follow that as a guide.
There are some tutorials out there, like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jvXJs97bPo

If instead you wanna do everything by hand, then you could start with a stick figure. Do the whole animation just with sticks and circles (for the hands and head, maybe joints like the shoulders and the elbows), and then after the animation is done you would start adding flat shapes on top of that to flesh your character out. Forget adding finer details at this point, leave that for last. Work with just the bigger shapes. Head, torso, arms and legs.
You could try and separate the limbs in different layers to more easily follow each of their movements. Paint them each in a different color, ignore your actual colors for now. Just be sure to be able to see each limb and the torso separately.
After that is done, then you would go and add another level of detail on top, painting with your actual palette, refining the shapes of the character. And then you could add the chain and fringes and whatnot. But as Sein said, that's gonna take a lot of work... Not just because it will be hard to draw each frame, but because they would move with a little delay in relation to the body. That's called secondary action.

I'm sure you can find animation tutorials about that too.

Btw, if you right click the imgur picture and copy the URL, you can post it here directly like this:

Alternatively, you can click the "..." button on the top right corner of the image and then "Get share links", then copying the "BBCode (Forums)" link.
(dunno how that works if you're on a phone or tablet.)