[C+C/WIP] Need advice for a platformer character

[rologfos]

Hello pixel artists, first post here so I hope i'm not breaking any rules.

Anyway currently my main character is a square with a line on it  . I've been trashing designs for weeks now and I think I have something that might work.

I think the chest needs a little work. Perspective seems off a little and the shading/non existent AA

I need the color count to be low enough so animation is a reasonable feat.
As you can see the character kind of strangely proportioned (short and wide)
but things would work out best if the collision on the character was squarish and less than 32x32.

The game is a time trial type game and the character can achieve high speeds, so I need it's design to reflect that.

I need to get the look of it down before I start on animation so, if anything immediately sticks out as bad please let me know. 



Here she is against some different colors



Thanks for reading!

[Vine]

here's a quick edit to try and remedy her stance a bit, i also tried fixing up her proportions so it reads more like a lady silhouette by trimming the broad shoulders and making her a bit taller

also its subtle but i put 1px of heels on her to give her flat footing, it helps "stabilize" the pose imo



edit; if your intention is to have the sprite match a square hitbox, you may be better off going in a more cartoony route so it fits a little better. here's a sprite i made some time ago that is super round but it sorta works just due to the cartoony nature of the art style;


IIRC Spelunky followed a similar approach

[Iceaxe]

Femininity can be hard to convey sometimes. Curently your character is kind of genderless at first glance but Vine's edit is on the right track. I had the same issue when designing my first female character.

Best tips i can give are to make sure their shoulders are hardly existant and their legs should generally have fatter thighs and skinny ankles to give them that curvy structure. Long hair helps but is obviously not necessary. And the last things would be fashion and colours. Pinks and purples are the obvious choice here again not necessary but can help when you have no other way of conveying gender. Fashion I would consider to be rather important as when it comes to females they can generally spend a lot more time on their appearance and I guess that should be evident in your art. Not trying to make any sweeping gender statements here, i just feel like a character can be a lot more than a few pixels on a screen and playing around with shapes, colours and even clothes can help you define your character and give a certain impression to your viewer the second they see it.

[MysteryMeat]

Honestly I think the body is fine. Those hips definitely read feminity while the rest of her design is just squat enough to suggest she can really punch things nice and good.
 Might help to tweak the face a bit though, she's got a pretty square-looking jaw there

[rologfos]

Thanks for all your feedback.

They originally started as genderless and the gender was tacked on poorly so I think that's where the poor conveyance of gender came from.

here's a quick edit to try and remedy her stance a bit, i also tried fixing up her proportions so it reads more like a lady silhouette by trimming the broad shoulders and making her a bit taller

also its subtle but i put 1px of heels on her to give her flat footing, it helps "stabilize" the pose imo

Thanks for the edit, visualizing the character in this way really helped me get out of my tunnel vision from seeing it for so long. I kind of forgot that it looked so burly. I want to convey agility not strength.

Here's what I have so far, made a male and female variant.


EDIT: Also I just realized i was testing different poses so i think the far right looks the best in terms of perspective.

[Iceaxe]

I'm really liking this character. The colors are great! Nice work on that rework.

I'm gonna keep throwing some ideas around with this edit:

Just a few small things like the shading on the left side of her body. I dropped her shoulders and made the hand on the right match the pose of the one on the left. Also dropped her bust, not sure if want but just throwing some ideas into the mix. Another thing you might want to try is making her sleeves shorter? You know.... fashion

The only thing I'd leave you with is the bottom of the cape/scarf looks like something they are holding. Its almost like its mid-wind-blowing-animation but doesn't really fit because the hair is still. I would maybe have it hug their bodies a bit more and have the bottom of it visible between their legs. Or have it running down the left arm so it's visible higher up. Just looks like it's defying gravity at the moment. When you get to animating I think it will be much more visible.

Keep it up! Loving the design.

[lachrymose]

Real hard to show feminine forms at this resolution. My attempt is less than desirable, an my new job is taking up all muh time. But I hope it pushes you into the right direction.

[rologfos]

I'm really liking this character. The colors are great! Nice work on that rework.

I'm gonna keep throwing some ideas around with this edit:

I really like what you did with the female version, however I think i'm going to avoid this situation all together and just make the player characters gender not specified, because it's not relevant to the game or it's story. I'll probably make the male look a little more androgynous and just do one character to save time animating and play to my strengths.

Real hard to show feminine forms at this resolution. My attempt is less than desirable, an my new job is taking up all muh time. But I hope it pushes you into the right direction.

I like what you've done with the form.
It's very feminine though, more than just female.

As I said above I think I'm going to stick with the male.

Thanks for all the help guys.

Time to start sketching some animations!