[WIP] Square Jawed Character

[bitterbug]

Hi all My first post. Whee.

My previous forays into pixel art were just some prototype/placeholder stuff for an iphone game, which were then handed off to an artist to actually make real art from using the dimensions. But I wanted to be able to actually put the characters I see in my head on the screen, so it's time to learn the skills myself.

Here's my first character attempt. I didn't use any reference art, just did the outline pixel by pixel in black until I had roughly what I wanted and then started filling and adding highlights/shadow.

I think I need to kill the highlight on (his) left leg, and do something about the speckling I made to break up (his) right arm. Maybe some gradient to shadow. And I either need to find a better blue for those pants or dither them so they don't pop as much.

Opinions welcome :

[Jorund]

I made a quick edit:


I removed every black outline.
Since the character is a square jawed, I remarked that, with some lines along the face.
Also the eyes where too stuck, so i separate them a little bit. And added some eyebrows.
Change the lighting on the legs, and change the blue from the trousers.

Now that I'm watching my edit, the light source is kind of confusing. Stick to one light source, not like me I tend to pillow shade.

Hope something helps.  
I'm just a newbie, but I like to practice.

[bitterbug]

Thanks for the pointers for reference.

I made a few tweaks to him. I've messed up the torso but I think I'm going to erase it out and give him a more aggressive posture with his arms down and his fists visible.

[bitterbug]

Not so much aggressive, and just better posture

Lots more shading, messing with alpha blending. I really have no idea what I'm doing here I think I need to do soething with the shirt now. Fix up the highlights on the pants so they're not as big and not as light. I softened the jaw shadow a lot. Hmmm.

[WM]

I suggest changing that outline to a dark, saturated red to match the shirt color.

And now that he has a more forward and relaxed pose his head seems to be in an awkward position.


For a first-timer you're pretty good! 

[bitterbug]

Thanks
This is taking me hours and hours just for this one guy though.
They just fly by though, this is quite fun.

So here's our evolution:







and the current iteration:


He's a little more assertive now

edit: Converted him to 4bpp to see what would happen

edit 2: For other newbies like myself, check out the color of his eyes vs. the background. It's the same color! What you're seeing there is the illusion of a color changing appearance because of its neighbors. Good theory to get into for working with limited palettes.
I'll still want to tweak the colors to take away the sick green tinge from the conversion, but I wanted to see what it would look like with the app doing the optimization.

(app used: GraphicsGale)