A Medusa Character For My Game

[rattler22snake]

I am somewhat new and still not very talented at pixel art and I was wondering if someone could critique this first sketch of a medusa character that I have made. I am making a multiplayer game with mythical and magical creatures and characters. As of now, I have a Necromancer and now I am working on a medusa character. I was wondering about the dithering effect that I used for her scales. I am not sure how well it looks. Also, any other tips and feedback are welcome.

[legiaoru]

 I think you could use colors with more contrast just to make the sprite more interesting. Her arms looks somewhat limp (not an native speaker, so couldn't find an better word), working around a little bit of anatomy could be great; Like her waist could be a little bit bigger so she don't look like so "straight".
 I like the idea you had to make dithering for the scales, but i don't really think you need to use it, at least not to this extent.
 I made an edit and even wrote an text, but the images aren't appearing for some reason, but you could take a peek at some pixelart basic tutorials to make round objects and such. And change her tail to look more natural.
 Here's the medusa sprite from SOTN, i really like this sprite... You can use it to study a little, studying pixelart using sprites from some games is pretty good

 

[rattler22snake]

I think I like this version but I'm not sure if I can make any improvements before I start to animate her. Any suggestions before I do that?

[eishiya]

I wish you wouldn't delete the old versions, so that people can take your progress and process into account when giving more feedback.

I like this new approach to the tail!

A couple of potential concerns before you animate:
1. The character looks rather flat, like a cardboard cutout, because the shadows/highlights are at the edges and don't follow the round form of the character.
2. The arms are hard to read because they blend into the torso and into each other.

Here's an edit that adds more volume to the snake-part and torso, adds a mouth, and adds some more contrast, mostly by eliminating a bunch of colours (18 -> 10) and adding a little more hue-shifting.

[Rydin]

Eyes go in the middle of the face:

[rattler22snake]

I took Legiaoru's, Eishiya's and Rydin's advice and help, and I edited my character again. I think it looks much much better but I'm sure it can still improve. If anyone has any other advice I will happily take it.

[Ryumaru]

Quite an ambitious character you have here! You've already improved the sprite a good bit it seems, but I think the low contrast palette, and the odd pose ( what is she doing with her hands?) are holding it back.





I tried to give her arms some sort of action, I'm sure you could come up with something just as good or even better. Think about the type of character she is, her emotions and personality, and use her body to illustrate them.

After that, I gave her a cooler skin tone to give her a more otherworldly vibe- it also seemed efficient to make her skin tone and underbelly scales the same palette; it could make some logical sense, too.

Also, here's an alternate that takes the palette even further: