Critique and tips for my art

[Eyerus games]

Hi there, I've created several sprites for my latest game and I would like to critiques and/or tips to make them better.



If you want to edit them for yourself I'm all for it, but please tell me what you did and how you did it.
Thank you.

[rikfuzz]

I wouldn't bother basing your character off Gomez of Fez fame; making him more 'human' has made him look very peculiar. 

In regards to the airship, you're treating your shape, texture and shading as completely independent things occupying the same space, which you have to unify to get nice results. 

The airship's huge too, I think you need to break it down properly into (fewer) tiles.  Assume you've taken reference from SMB3, but study it further, there's two sets of textured tiles, one darker for the underside.  The darker set doesn't merely have a multiply layer sitting on top of, it's actually got no highlight colour anymore, and the texture is denser (smaller details as if further away helping prevent it being so flat). 

Here's a nice looking balloon for reference for the top part:

[Eyerus games]

Thanks for the tips. I wasn't trying to copy Gomez, but Fez is what inspired me to make this character. Could you give me some tips on how to make him more human?

[imnumberfour]

Is that wood texture from EldPack?!

[Eyerus games]

Yeah, I plan to change it. Its just temporary.

[imnumberfour]

You should say that in the OP/ask for permission.

[JonasO]

Allright, brace yourself, critique coming in.

The texture of the airship should match the form. This way it looks flat and the shading seems very off.
It's most obvious at the hind part which comes out of the heck.

Also the thickness of your outline is different depending on whether it's a straight line or a curve. Also there are some places where you use 2px outlines or just have additional pixels in the outline.

The airship needs to be balanced somehow. This thing will not fly. The center of gravity and the angles (of the bug) look very wrong to me.

The propellors (?) Seem like they have been added randomly after the ship's form had been decided.

Why do you use both noise for shading as well has hand-placed dithering? I don't like the mix of styles. Same for the mix of HQ texture on the body of the ship and plain colors for everything else.

I have not seen an airship with this rope configuration before. Make them more regular (regular distances, regular vertical position)

Could you try to use more straight lines and less curves (for the body)? It would be interesting to see how that works out.

Why is there a steer wheel but no speed control (a simple lever for "accelerate/don't" or something)?

Why does the light come from above for the ballon and the body, but not for the steam pipe (where it comes from top left)?

[Eyerus games]

I'm actually laughing my ass at your genius reply, because you're sooo right  . You noticed things that I just overlooked. But as you can probably tell I'm much better with smaller sprites (but I'm still not that great). I'll start recreating the ship soon, when I do I'll post it here and email you. Thanks for the help! 

[yaomon17]

Also, don't be afraid to use references!



 
I used the pictures to get a good hold on the shape of the boat (though if you have taken enough history classes, you may not need the reference). I also used them to see how a balloon would go about the process of getting held down by ropes in a practical manner. Remember that the ship has to look as if it would actually function so I recommend looking at some steampunk styled concept art of flying ships.