Hey all,
This is both my first post and my first pixel art piece in years. I'm not a graphic artist by a long shot but I thought it would be beneficial to work on a project completely my own, from start to finish - to learn the ropes, so to speak. I hope none of you are offended by this admission, as the quality of art here at Way of the Pixel is
incredibly high. I am slightly concerned that if I now post a sprite, the feedback will be too good and I won't be able to implement or learn enough of it; "Learning from the best" has that inherent problem. Hopefully this won't be the case!
Now with that out of the way, this here is a non-player character ("John") for the aforementioned adventure game project; The character is supposed to be wearing shaggy leisure clothes. I've attempted to make him look like he enjoys solitude and stays to himself, exactly the kind of person who doesn't look into your eyes when you're talking to him. His posture, the rolled-up sleeves and closed fists imply caution and even slight physical danger.
The reason I'm pasting a few poses for the sprite now and not after I've done walk cycles and other animations (I've already tested out some preliminary animations, of which there will be plenty I assume) is that I'm afraid of jumping headfirst into animating before the sprite is where it "should" be, that is, with the little artistic tools that I possess right now, so I thought this might be the best stage to ask for help if ever. I think the main issues here with the sprite are related to the palette (there may be a few stray colours left but the palette is approx. what I've included) and definition. I'm also not sure if the light sources are beneficial.
Indy from FoA stood next to him during the pixeling but the sprite is original from start to finish. The sprite size too is chosen after the usual LucasArts 320x200 characters. I'm hoping my sprites would fall stylistically somewhere in-between the graphical realms of Indiana Jones IV and BASS.
Thanks for understanding!