...phew... that makes me glad.
look at these interesting results... based on my previous suggestion to ya... (yeah I know you said you're not keen on the look but I was curious to see what it might look like....)
So I did two tests, one where I darkened the rear leg and arm...which I think looks kinda nice. But I'm inclined to agree with you neverest that perhaps it wouldn't neccessarily work in ISO...
The second one based on what you were saying about not really liking that style, so I chose to go with what you're saying and compromise a bit with what I like to do with outlines... I'm not that keen on full black outlines, (as you may have noticed) so I thought I'd knock back those legs by tinting the outline... it's subtle... but I think it works... and is an interesting result.
It's interesting because the interior colors appear subdued... this is a perfect example of what I call 'tonal edging' - it may have a proper name but its something I discovered a long time ago.
I used to edge everything in black. But, one of the things with outlining in pixels is that the color you choose to outline and area with tends to effect the interior colors. An interesting experiment is do is to take a WHITE square and edge it with various color tones, see what happens to the white... it takes on the color of the edging. It tends to work better the smaller the area but It's an opticle illusion that one can take advantage of when pixeling... it's a bit like adding a color wash when painting on canvas in acrylic.
Having said that Black edging does make sprites stand out it's true, but sometimes It can be overwhelmingling distracting and besides there are other ways to make your sprites jump out from the screen - I guess it comes down to design and style.
Generally speaking I very rarely use black in sprites these days. I use dark tones. Very dark tones. Really Deep Blue, Sometimes Purple... but that's just me...
