Hair on small (24x48) sprite

[Aniki]

I'm working on a game for work. I want to make the characters who are based on employees to be recognizable. The biggest indicator for this size I think would be the hair.

It doesn't really look quite like the style he has it. I don't expect to get it perfect, but I'm hoping to get it right.

Reference:


Attempts:


Right now I'm going with the middle one. The game is 2x zoom. Here is another character which I have posted on here already, a robot girl (child):

Already I can see that my first character's head is too small.

[eishiya]

It's hard to tell from the photo, but I think the hair has a bit of a cone shale that sticks out forward? So, you could probably have it cast a shadow on the forehead to give it that look.

I also tried messing with the shape of the highlight to exaggerate the curving of the hair.

You may want to use higher-contrast colours for the hair, unless this is going to be viewed only at high zoom levels.

[Aniki]

I poked around a bit, messed with the colors and made it as big as my other sprite's head.

I think it's quite a bit better now, but he looks a bit like a 40-something rather than a 20-something year old: