I need help making a rpg character!

[Not4mortaleyes]

Me and one of my friends are making a 2D sandbox/dark souls like game and i have spent the last couple days trying to make a player sprite but so far i have had no luck and i am going to star over from scratch but i dont know where to start. also so far ive been trying to create a realistic style sprite with 3 colors at a 16x24 resolution any tips and suggestions will be greatly appreciated 

[eishiya]

You should post your previous attempts and explain what you didn't like about them.
It would also help if you posted some context. Are there any environment tiles done? Any enemy sprites? If not, it may help you to do some of that, as they will give you a sense of direction for the player sprite. The player sprite should stand out from their surroundings, so having some environment work done (even if it's just rough, unpolished mockups) will help you with the colours and detail level. It'll also help you with the perspective on the characters.

16x24 is pretty small, so for the sake readability, it may not be the best idea to do very realistic proportions, as you'll end up with a very skinny sprite that leaves very little room for colour/value identity and defining features. Be prepared to stylise things to make the sprite easy to see and identify, especially in combat.

[Not4mortaleyes]

You should post your previous attempts and explain what you didn't like about them.
It would also help if you posted some context. Are there any environment tiles done? Any enemy sprites? If not, it may help you to do some of that, as they will give you a sense of direction for the player sprite. The player sprite should stand out from their surroundings, so having some environment work done (even if it's just rough, unpolished mockups) will help you with the colours and detail level. It'll also help you with the perspective on the characters.

16x24 is pretty small, so for the sake readability, it may not be the best idea to do very realistic proportions, as you'll end up with a very skinny sprite that leaves very little room for colour/value identity and defining features. Be prepared to stylise things to make the sprite easy to see and identify, especially in combat.

the game's environment wont be made out of tiles i hope to make a system that generates a organic shape as a photo and use one big sprite to texture specific materials  and for the art style i dont have any tiles or mock ups made yet but i have to make the environment have a similar style to this
https://scutanddestroy.wordpress.com/tag/pixel-art/page/11/
and the characters/objects will have a simpler style so they stand out more i hope i was able to give enough information i only came up with the idea a couple weeks ago

[Not4mortaleyes]

here are some armor sets i made plus some of my attempts at making a player sprite without armor

[Curly]

The horned one is imposing The silver one's chest is too wide isn't it? The last pixel column should be arm better imo.
The skin looks from a dead body or something? Maybe that was the look you wanted. It's ok if it fits the game atmosphere.

[MysteryMeat]

Could work as female armor for a heavy-set character, RE: the wide-chested armor.

[Not4mortaleyes]

the armor sets i made while experimenting with what i can do with such a limited resolution but i might make the resolution higher because i want there to be a lot of unique looking armor sets so when you encounter another player there clothing tells a story about what kind of player/adventurer they are and just because it looks cool

[Not4mortaleyes]

The horned one is imposing The silver one's chest is too wide isn't it? The last pixel column should be arm better imo.
The skin looks from a dead body or something? Maybe that was the look you wanted. It's ok if it fits the game atmosphere.

those colors are temporary i will probably change the pallet once i have a base sprite that im happy with done and for the games atmosphere i want vary between places but overall i want it to have a serious/kinda dark tone to it

[Curly]

@Mysterymeat Didn't think about that haha. But as far as I know real female armor don't look too different from male armor.
@Not4mortaleyes I think that would be the best option. Not only for amor design, but for weapons and animations too. It's hard (at least for me) making a 3px long arm swing a sword.
About the atmosphere, that's what I meant. I think it could work in a dark game, even more if you are some kind of undead like in Dark Souls

[Not4mortaleyes]

i will probably double the size or increase it some more (i haven't decided on a good resolution yet) but idk were to start when making a good human sprite that looks realistic but is still simple enough to stand out of the background without losing too much variation and detail
@Mysterymeat the male and female armors will be similar in design