Leg Anatomy Help

[Retsyn]

Hey.  I'm back into making some little games, and I'm finding I'm very rusty in the pixelling department.  I figured it'd be fun to get some opinions and help.  I think alot of you guys/girls make really great art and really know what you're doing.

Anyway, I started a character sprite today.  I didn't have a deisgn as I began to draw, I just wanted to get a generic humanoid to become a character later.  What I got is this fellow in a hoodie.

I am disheartened that I can't get a sensible leg pose or porportion.  Anyone wanna take a look?



I'm aware of some of the colour contrast issues, I haven't really gave full attention to the colour palette yet (not sure what kind of graphical restrictions will exist yet... maybe none because I'm leaning towards using Pygame) but I'd be just as happy to hear any advice on the colours and shading; but the legs of this first standing frame are the show-stopper right now.

-Ret

[Twinspiration]

The left leg's the trouble right now.



I tried to align his knee-caps, but his stance still looks a bit uncomfortable (standing with knees bent).
But it should look okay if its animated as an idle-pose or something.

Your character's looking pretty good so far, although there's a bit of [pillow-shading] going on in his clothing.

[KuroRyuzaki]

Isnt that pillow shadeing...?

[Retsyn]

Twinspiration: Your edits do make him look more natural, although now it seems like his pants shrunk in the wash. 

Here's the stance I chose after (and we can see I tried to work out the pillow shading issue... a very bad habit of mine, I know.)

He looks like he's pretty tense, for some reason.  I wonder what this game will even be about?  I'm just working on a generic game engine, so there's no concept in mind yet.  This guy will likely change completely before anything playable is made.

I'm having a little trouble with colour contrast in my palettes (but I admit I didn't work to hard on it) and I worry that my laptop screen is deceiving me about contrasts.  When I arranage my palette, it appears that the greys in his pants are closer together than they look to be in the sprite.  Not a big worry, I can tweak it until it looks right to my eye.

Any further thoughts are appreciated.