[WIP] Side-scrolling beat'em up character (C&C)

[corix]

Hello, guys.

I'm new to pixel art, even though I have some illustration experience. I'm trying to make a side-scrolling beat'em up game, kinda like the Capcom's X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse. There are various games that are being used as reference, but graphically I'm trying to do something like Delphine Software's Flashback and Seta's Nosferatu.

The game will have a comical feel, like Earthbound, Earthworm Jim and Metal Slug.

The main character is a woman, based on my girlfriend's carnival costume, and I'm having some trouble defining her pixels. I'm trying to use no more than 12 colors on her, but it's hard for me to define the light&shadow on her pixels

She will have 54 pixels of height, and I'm thinking of using a 256 x 192 pixels "screen".

How she looks:


Her "skeleton":


And she in a 3x image for those, who like me, get some blur when zooming in:

[ErekT]

Hello.

I played around a bit with your girl.

The pose needs fixing. She needs proper balance if she's gonna duke it out with someone so her right leg needs to go further back to support the body weight.

I did some color changing too. 12 colors is overkill. Remember you can recycle colors across the piece.

[Rydin]

3 things:

•Don't be afraid to use colors from one place and use them in another. For example, the color you use on her hair could be used for darker parts of her pants. The peachy color of her sleeve could be used for a highlight.

•Pick a definite source of light.  Otherwise you'll be sculpting forms at random, and the result will be messy.

•Don't forget about what material you're trying to portray. Vinyl pants are going to be a heck of a lot more shiny than denim.