Clowning Around

[Haunted-House]

Hey guys, I'm not very experienced with the ways of pixel art and I would like some c&c to improve this clown sprite I've been working on.

[pixelrox]

The clown stands out. Clowns should be colorful. I think it's just right. Any more pixeling might be too much dithering. However, there might be some room for some shading.

[WM]

I would like to see the shading on the blue portion of the costume to be darkened and shifted more towards a purple. I would also like to see some more purple worked into the red shade.

The hand pointed towards the viewer needs to be defined a little more: try moving the shading under the hand and sharpening it, and separating the thumb from the rest of the hand with a little bit of shading around it.

I like it so far

[Haunted-House]

Thanks for the input. I've tweaked the colors and shading and I think it's a good improvement!
Considering he is meant to be used on a blue and red tent BG the purple tint was an especially good call.

[pixelrox]

It's better. The purple tint helps. I agree with the comment about the hand also. At the least try to see the left hand with the darker half being the lower half instead of the upper. Even if you define the thumb. The position right now is more like what you would see in a spoon.

Something else you could try as a test, is to take the clowns left hand exactly at the position it is and flip horizontally. Then shift it to the right so it sticks out away from the rest of the arm. This gives more of a balance. Also test that balance with a background. Usually in figure it's good there too.

[Haunted-House]

Pixel hands can be tricky stuff! Looking better?





I've also been working on this performance stat bar and background. What do you think about a bit of dithering on the tent lighting and ground?

[FRAWG]

I think that a little more definition with the stage is in order, it's hard to tell really what is going on in the frame.

And it took a while to realize that those were happy and sad faces on the meter.... if you have the room, a little resizing could be nice.

[Haunted-House]

Thanks, I've touched up the meter and made these two mockups. I'm leaning more towards the outlined version, what do you guys think?
Maybe a version with colored outlines per object?