only just noticed this

browsers been exclusively in pixelart for awhile..
first up thanks for taking the time to give feedback it's appreciated

and agree with all your points, it was rather speedily done so being described as elegantly designed is a great indication I'm going in the right direction and yeah for instance he has 10 poly loop on the arms, should reduce to atleast half that for optimization sake unless I go in the other direction and go high poly, which I won't... because I much prefer PS2 kinda spec models probably set a 5k cap or there abouts including minor costume and props.
still early days though Haven't been modeling too long, should probably dump some of the better stuff I do, and also that's the reason I stated semi low spec in the topic, really low spec art like DS style 3D is something I'm yet to attempt successfully, although I have dabbled in extremely low poly. I'm itching to animate my 3D creations though.
and yeah the robot isn't very optimized and I decided i was going to use loops to do some white paint lines, vertex painting is rather interesting method (I like how ZBrush use quadrilateral Vertex painting and make it out to be something original by calling it PolyPaint™) I might eventually unwrap the UVs and bake it down onto a low res texture and optimize it. I keep jumping from model to model, trying to learn as much as I can from each, I'm essentially teaching myself. recently started getting game models and analyzing some of what they do. high density models are quite intimidating this early on. but I've seen a few videos recently too and I'm surprised how primitive they start, most modern "next gen"/high detail models are simple base meshes, sculpted to an immense level of detail, then simplified and retopo'd but of course work-flows vary from artist to artist.
and indeed dabble in anything and everything that interests me. Yay for dabbling

and yeah I've been contemplating doing some spline style sloped terrain, I'm considering breaking it down though to something efficiently loadable like a quad distributed heightmap or something, but model data isn't that large for low spec, and I'm not coding for any form of limited hardware so maybe I shouldn't, but I will experiment, might prove to be faster for asset creation. (I'm doing a degree in game art and design next year and hope to make some cool demos and hopefully network with some awesome programmers, although if any programmers are reading this and interested in small scale artistically driven game demos PM me I always love to do personal projects whenever I can and my programming is extremely limited so I rarely break past the Art phase)
OffTopic-ish: speaking of Metal Gear Solids, there is something Japanese models. personally they are like the pinnacle of where I'd love to get to skillwise, they have a sense of elegance and precision and something not quite the same in most western games, also I've seen quite alot of western games that have high quality and high detail textures, but poorly formed meshes. in motion sometimes it's not so but nigh unnoticeable, and it's mostly only evident in the earlier era of 3D games. but just something about Japanese (and even Korean games are quite often as nice) proportions and aesthetic ideals.. maybe it's as simple as longer legs

but there definitely is a defining factor of characters in particular that have such a wide appeal, for me atleast.
wow that got long
