@MysteryMeat Hey, I will try remaking the shirt later today! thanks for advice. I used so many fold because on the original foto of me it was quite foldy because of my arm being up(Was taking a selfie lol), I will try your approach!

Hey so I was programing this gold rush game and decided to start making some art to it, basically what I need is a character that woul be able to run left, right up and down. I like don't starver aproach to this (they have left and right sprite and it still looks ok running up and down) so I am not sure if it is not too big (would love if he was smaller but then I strugle with art)...
So this is what I did today:

Looks kid of dull to me, not sure if is the arms that cause this or what, please help not sure about colors either.. Your input and iterations are apreciated - I will need to animate him too :/ so yeah any advice ?

Here is what I was inspired by:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/7b/e1/d3/7be1d39d04c1678a4e5d01a64b947e69.jpg
http://img08.deviantart.net/c422/i/2014/079/d/3/western_character_gold_digger_by_jeppe_roemer_by_tolkyjr-d7awjwb.jpg


EDIT:



Adjusted head position, left leg went a bit to the left, fixed up torso (dunno if I like him slim or fat), adjusted arms and palms (hated them the most - still not sure about them)

@Squiggly_P thanks for all of your advice! gonna probably try painting some other pokemon to try out your advice - I'll try to post them here later, thanks!!

I did an edit:

yours -> mine



Step one was to reduce the colors. Yours had over 100 colors. Mine has eight. Seven for Pikachu and one background color. I'd suggest using a pixelling program like aesprite, graphics gale, proMotion or something similar. These have indexed color palettes which allow you to keep control over how many colors you're using.

After I reduced the colors I went in and redefined the lighting using the light source from the left and slightly above. Your image also seemed to have light coming from the bottom, so I got rid of that. Having really well-defined shadow shapes will make your images feel nice and solid.

From there I just went in and used the available colors to redraw the outlines and do a wee bit of AA here and there. With a few more colors you could smooth out all the little jaggies and such. I didn't want to redraw your entire shape or anything, so the outline is more or less the same, but I made some alterations to the ears and butt area and cleaned up a few issues with irregular outlines. I like 'em to be nice and smooth if at all possible.

The biggest change is probably the mouth shape, which I redrew to make him a little more happy, and I gave him some eyebrow ridges.

Lighting is probably the biggest factor in the edit, as well as contrast. Don't be afraid of your shadow shapes. I could have pushed the contrast more, in fact. Shadows define form, and if there's no contrast to the light and the shadows the image won't feel solid.

Keep pushin those pixels, man. Practice, practice and more practice.

Heey! dyam from further away your pikachu looks sooo sooo amazing, I am always afraid of making shadows too dark, what is the proper way of choosing shadows? I seem to have a hard time choosing the right colors - I just poke the rgb palet for like two minutes and I am still not satisfied...

The mouth and the colors looks a freaking mazing!

I had a lot of trouble trying to make it have 5 fingers like in the picture but then I just gave up, I love your aproach on the paws!

I am also loving the colors that you use - the main question would be how do you choose colors? I tried finding tutorials or things of that kind but kind of failed..

All in all huge thanks! you shed some light and that advice was much needed! Thanks!

I love the first 4, the hooded guy could use some cloth folds on the portrait other than that looks cool. BUT don't go too crazy on cloth texture, since other have that minimalistic detail