[C&C][WIP] Beginner's first attempt

[Goldoche]

I'm trying to make a character for a video game. I'm aiming for a 3/4 perspective. I'm not sure if I got that part right, the character looks like he's facing us instead of the camera being at the right perspective. The blue rectangle is meant to be a gun but I probably won't put it directly in this sprite.



Here's someone else's attempt at improving the lightning (on the right). Do you think it's better than the left?

Personally I don't want to accentuate the lightning too much because light direction won't always make sense in-game compared to what I have in this sprite. However the lightning does help to distinguish the arms.



Do you feel like the image is readable or should I try to jump at a higher resolution? So far I got a few people saying it felt too "pixel-y". I want the character to stay relatively simple so animation stays manageable. Same reason for the low number of colors.

What would you change if you were me? Any ideas to improve the design? Any comments and criticisms welcome!

[MysteryMeat]

It's not very readable, no. I think it might be a problem with the pose more than anything, doesn't create a strong distinction about what's happening.
It's very hard to pick out the gun from his body, which is always an odd challenge to handle. It might help to reduce the colors further to try and create a sort of cartoonier look so you can better use color to create more distinction.

[Goldoche]

It's not very readable, no. I think it might be a problem with the pose more than anything, doesn't create a strong distinction about what's happening.
It's very hard to pick out the gun from his body, which is always an odd challenge to handle. It might help to reduce the colors further to try and create a sort of cartoonier look so you can better use color to create more distinction.

Is this any better? I tried to accentuate the lightning and use a higher contrast for the colors.



I'm not sure how I could change the pose or use even less colors while keeping the same design. Time to start over?

As for the cartoon look, I don't really want it but I'll see. Maybe I could multiply the resolution by 2 of my current sprite to allow me to add more details? It's going to be harder to animate though.

Also, I'd like to know what you think about the rework of my character by someone else (on the right, on the 2nd picture in the OP). Is it still unreadable?

Anyways, thanks for the feedback!

[MysteryMeat]

Hard to tell, it's not at native resolution so I can't really look at it at a 1:1 scale.

As for posing, having him tilt the gun off to the side to create a more readable silhouette could help.
I'm sure there's plenty of pistol reload animations to look at across various media for inspiration, but Resident Evil 4 in particular did some pretty snazzy reload animations, it's 3rd-person modelwork yeah but there's a lot of similar animation ideas there to what I'm trying to get across
note how they pose him so his gun's off to the right of him so you can focus more on it when he does said snazzy animation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWLwHkQtq8I

I might try to do a quick edit later, but I'm also a bit swamped with commission work at the moment.


EDIT: As for the actual edit, yeah the lighting does help a lot! Keep at it!

[dpixel]

I would think in 3/4 perspective, the character would be less tall and more wide...or something like that.   My vision of what I think you're trying to do is this:

At this size, it's all about definition.  Every pixel counts!

[Goldoche]

I would think in 3/4 perspective, the character would be less tall and more wide...or something like that.   My vision of what I think you're trying to do is this:

At this size, it's all about definition.  Every pixel counts!

I tried to shorten him a bit. I also changed the grays for blue-grays, I think it looks slightly better.



Here's my attempt at idle animation. Again, I'm completely new at this.

https://a.pomf.cat/osiapu.webm

I'll try next to redesign the character with a more cartoony look, like MysteryMeat suggested. Maybe it'll come up better.

[MysteryMeat]

Good attempt with the idle animation! I reccomend posting those as a gif though, it makes it easier for us to tweak frame durations. In the webm it seems to be going 1frame per second, instead of what I presume was meant to be 30/60fps animation

[Goldoche]

Here's my attempt at a more cartoony look. Thoughts? How would you make it look better?



I also tried to invert the color scheme for fun.



edit : It's hard to see but I used by mistake a color that blends in with the background of this website.

[drain.]

Outlines are usually are the way to go if you want something to look cartoony and blocky, no outlines also means it might read badly in juxtaposition with other game elements.

[MysteryMeat]

Here's my attempt at a more cartoony look. Thoughts? How would you make it look better?



I also tried to invert the color scheme for fun.



edit : It's hard to see but I used by mistake a color that blends in with the background of this website.

I'd say that's a good style without the lines, it may not be as "cartoony" but it has kind of a clean-cut simple look to it. Reminds me of Risk of Rain, which has some excellent minimalist pixels going for it.