Main Character Fin?: Variations

[xhunterko]

NOTICE

You may ignore the drivel and go right to the notice if you'd like.
START Drivel:
Never, ever, ever show your little sibling your sprite art. Why?:

"I don't know why I bother, all your stuff looks the same." "What is he, some robot ninja thing?" "Well, he still has stick legs, the arm is too long, and he doesn't have any 3dish shading."

What ticks me off most, is the 3 other people on the net who saw it said it looked good. They let me think that it was okay, now I think it still sucks. I just wanted to take the erase tool and go through all the work on my file. And remove a good blob of it. Then start from scratch or do something else for a while. Anyway, this is not the reason why I posted.
END Drivel

Notice: So, aside from the above, I think that the sprite is mostly finished. But I'm going to do some variations of friendly NPC troopers and some enemy troopers to practice on. Just so I don't screw up the main sprite any more. Hopefully I'll have the some done by this weekend. (Yes, I know this is not a blog. Just wanted to give you guys a head's up of what's coming up.)

NEWEST
I think I'm closer to calling it finished. Something still bothers me though. More below.


Most thing changed is the palette, and some other. More below.


Did some slight modifying to the right leg and ankle. Changed a bit of the armor pads. More below
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/rob/NeoHunterko/sketchedspritemodded.png
Changed a few things here and there. Based somewhat off of Anarcho's edit. The one with the orange circle is the newest one. More below.
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/rob/NeoHunterko/mainsketchybaseedit.png
Changed size restrictions. That allowed for a bit more detail I think. (Not the guy with the exclamation mark, the guys with the swords.)
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/rob/NeoHunterko/sketchedtestnew2.png
I changed the colors and some other things explained in below post. I hope I took some of the advice.
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/rob/NeoHunterko/sketchedtestnew.png
Older Image
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/rob/NeoHunterko/maincharacter.png
OLD UPDATED
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/rob/NeoHunterko/mainrev.png

I think what I want help on, is mostly style, shading, and something else. I just can't put my finger on it at the moment. Scroll down for drivel.

I've been struggling with the style for a while now and i just don't know what to go with. I know I should be working on something else, but I had a couple days off this week so I had to do some pixel work. I just don't know what style I should use here.

The smaller one is one I came up with. The larger one is an adaptation to a newer style I found on from a game. Maybe I'm trying to find a happy medium between the two.

Crits, comments, help please.

(Don't overreact, don't overreact, don't overreact...)

[tocky]

-contrast is an issue
-emphasise the qualities that make your character unique.
-use a photo for anatomy reference

[Emtch]

I think the character lacks personality. It looks like a beat em up enemy. First of all, you should correct the body, stance and stuff like that (look at Tocky's edit), then I think you should try to add more character.
Also, is the thing at the back of the head a head band or just spikes?

[xhunterko]

Its supposed to be a headband. Looking at it, it does look a bit off. Everything always looks good on paper. I actually wanted the spikes to be his hair kind of. But I couldn't get it to look right so I went with spikes. Thanks emtch, however, that is by far the oddest style I've seen anywhere. I don't know about that contrast. I'm using 4 colors (1 is border), shadow, midtone, and highlight.

How would I add more character and overall expression?

[Quake]

Well, first for character.. i'd look at your pose which you've put him in. think about what he's going to do. Right now, he looks quite.. bent knees.

And then, the overall expression will become clear once you figured out what the character will do. You can then put that into his stance or whatever, for some style.

[xhunterko]

@Tocky:   The one in the pink circle is the updated one.

1.I'm pretty sure I got the contrast thing.
2. I added changed the spikes a little bit. Gave him a bit more armor pieces I think. Its odd, those eyes aren't really yellow. But not close up, they look yellow, I just noticed it and wondered why you made them yellow.
3. Dug out Military Field Ops manual I got from my brother in law and found a reference there. Also, I used a megaman zx reference. I hope it doesn't look like an edit.

Does this look correct now? I'm a bit confused as to how to do the feet. Plus the helmet looks a bit off.

EDIT: Forgot about merging the outline. Looks like I have to bring out the entire gray pallette. That'd be pretty neat though. An enemy investigates a dark corner and all he sees is glowing, yellowish eyes before he dies.

EDIT2: I think. But I can't work on it anymore tonight though. Maybe something later this week after work. (8:30 tomorrow, not getting much sleep tonight.  )

[tocky]

Yeah, I figured he was wearing goggles or something.

Your dude still looks too flat, I'll see if I can post somethign that shows what I mean. Make closer stuff lighter, including outlines. Contrast issues are still there. Use a wider range of values - lighter highlights, darker shadows. I was using your pallete for the most part, but it could use some work. Use colours, even when the stuff you're drawing is gray, and don't make it all the same hue. So use, for instance, a blue-black for shadows, a pale dark red for hilights. Or something else, just mess around with it. But use a human reference, for reals. Megaman won't be half as useful.

EDIT:

Okay, most of your contrast issues could be fixed by messing with the colours, but the flatness thing is a bit more complicated. You need to be blocking in colours so that his shape, and his stance, reads more clearly. Be sure to indicate stuff like elbows and knees. Use shading to indicate the shape of things, and use negative space.  Do you get where I'm coming from?

[xhunterko]

I believe I have fixed some of the stuff. Although the hands, feet, and legs bother me still. I changed the sprite a bit more and decided to go with a generic trooper here. I also changed the pallete a bit to make shading easier. I thought about going to gray again. Then I thought a dark blue would look better. Removed helmet as well for same reason. It will be added in later though. Wanted to try shading with different colors a bit.



(After data mining for a week I found a tutorial that actually did step by step on what I wanted...Now that I have it downloaded, image wise, I forgot where I found it. Still, it helped, I think. Right?)

[Emtch]

I still think it feels a bit egyptian, the torso and arms are pretty much front view, while the legs and head are sideview. And what's up with his torso? It looks like it's made up of many randomly placed chest muscles. Also the colors are too saturated and the contrast is too bad.

[xhunterko]

He's supposed to be a black ops operative (guy in the blue) with body armor on. I have an idea for the contrast which I'm using (unposted) at the moment. I found a sprite on here that has the similar restrictions as mine does, so I may use that as inspiration maybe. He's actually supposed to be wearing full body armor, but I can't seem to get it to look right. I'm probably worried that the player won't be able to see themselves if I make it too dark.

(On a side off topic note: Who is the guy that pops up in the pixelation banner? It's bothering me.)