Sprite vs Background, ongoing battle

[Stwelin]

For all you game developers and artists, maybe you know or have been through this issue. I've run into the the issue of a sprite showing up poorly on different shades of backgrounds.

The original sprite has no outline, and the shades are fairly close to 50/50, or at least that is how they read. here is the character:


So the game has fairly dark background, except in a case such as this, the character will be ontop of a rather large object that is not as dark, and it reads somewhat poorly. maybe i have been staring at it too long. (i know the green reads alright, but the pants/hat area bugs me badly.)



I really don't want to take the cheap way out with a black outline.

So what do you guys and gals suggest? 
(as always, edits welcome.)

Cheers,
Stwelin

Edits/Updates:

[AdamAtomic]

i'd just make the purple parts lighter, or use a different color there - purple is VERY dark generally speaking, and will only really stand out against incredibly dark backgrounds properly.  If you squint, you can still make out the green and skin tones pretty easily, its just the purple that gets lost.

[Andy Tran]

 Looking nice. I'd say use the black outline. It makes him stand out more.  

[Xion]

Can you give him a cast shadow that shows up darkly on the bg?
Or give some other indication of his position, like every time he takes a step a puff of dust pops up?
Put some lights on the bg that casts it into a different color...?
I dunno, just some ideas.

[Ryona]

If you really don't want to change anything about the character's appearance, I'd suggest to make the character very animated so that he'd be easy to spot. Even when he's standing idly, he should move around a bit like look from side to side, dust him himself off, flip a coin, etc...

Cute character by the way. 

[Stwelin]

Thanks for the responses.

Adam: i tried messing around with the purple, but i cannot get it to the point were it is saturated how i like it, but still shows up.

Xion: I like the shadow casting idea, I think i may just have the game draw the same sprite behind him at a certain transparency or color. I might take an intuitive approach and only have it draw it if the pixels around him at above a certain brightness. 

Ryona: Thank you! I think i will have him do some idle stuff, actually. maybe a yo-yo.

[Stwelin]

Sorry for the doublepost, here's a little update.

[leel]

hehe i love the stretchable pocket!  very cute ^_^  though the yo-yo looks a little big imo,

[Xion]

Yeah, I think a 2x2 yoyo would be cool...
But then again the point is to draw attention so the player knows where the character is, so I guess its fine like it is.

[sharprm]

Thats a cool animation. Hope you do more like he blows bubble gum etc.