Making a mundane fish look evil (and well drawn)

[DTE462]

So here is one of the most basic enemies of my game.



Problem one is it doesn't look menacing or evil or dangerous or threatening whatsoever.

Problem two is it's also just not all that well done.

Here is an extremely rough 2 frame animation just to keep in mind whatever I do will have to be animated. Specifically I don't know that scales read very when they are dancing around.



Any advice on how to improve the thing in general, or more specifically what might make it look like a more interesting enemy, would be appreciated (I think it's somewhere in the eyes, but I just ran out of pixels to convey any information).

[yaomon17]

Make the eye a single red evil pixel surrounded by darkness. It will make it evil.

[DTE462]

This is great. It's so much easier to animate too. How you handled the scales is brilliant.

I should have mentioned it's supposed to be a red snapper that has a distinctive white belly, but it reads as a light source. Keeping the belly darker gives the sprite more volume.



I'm still working on it, but thanks for pointing me in the right direction.