Hello.
As you can see, character art is not my strongest point ._. Anyway, this is Mervin, an old diver. Give me some comments and feel free to modify the picture too.
(http://invis.free.anonymizer.com/http://koti.mbnet.fi/hurjat/mervin.png)
I think it would improve substantially if you make the guy's torso a bit shorter... it looks unnaturately long at this point. Other than that, though, it's looking really good!
I agree with remixor, It would help to shorten the torso, but just a little bit because I think that he, as a diver, has to be skinny. I think you have captured the personality of character very well, since he really looks like a guy that spent most of his life somewhere by the sea. Actually my first idea after I saw the picture and before I read the post was that he looked like an old surfer :D
To sum it up, I think that the character is great and you should keep the style.
As with all criticism, please take my comments with a grain of salt. Often times the suggestions that someone makes towards another's work can stray away from the piece's original intentions.
Stylisticaly, I like it. The only thing that I question about it is the perspective on the character's head. Is his head supposed to be turned slightly to the side? Is his hair blowing to the left?
I hope you don't mind, but I thought I'd give a quick re-draw a shot. It turned out pretty good, I think, but only because there was a great base to start from. Your character as-is definitely captures the beachy-fisherman vibe.
All I've done is shorten his legs, torso, and arms and make the face (while still turned slightly to the right) a bit more symetrical.
(http://www.penguinx.org/fisherman.png)
Hey thanks guys, really good points! I was going to post my edited version, but I gotta fix the head as Penguinx did. I have also shortened him a bit, but not too much, because he shouldn't look much shorter than other characters :)
Just a quick point about shortening... Perhaps you can shorten his torso and perhaps lenghthen his legs a bit. I think what looks odd isn't how long his torso is, but how disproportionate it is to his legs.
Okay, here's new Mervin:
(http://koti.mbnet.fi/hurjat/mervin2.png)
(http://koti.mbnet.fi/hurjat/mervin2.png)
And here's another character for you to see, Rudolph:
(http://koti.mbnet.fi/hurjat/rudolph.png)
(http://koti.mbnet.fi/hurjat/rudolph.png)
:)
If all the characters will retain this same style as well as these two did, you should have (visually at least) a very polished end result.
I'd like to see these characters in some backgrounds - cool stuff.
Nice. I think you did an even better job on that second character. The only thing is the eyes. I'm not sure how exactly to fix this, but the guy looks kind of insane with the two white dots since they're just a strong contrast to his skin tone.
Actually, it's not just two white dots, there's also green in his eyes if you look carefully. I guess it looks better in game :)
The white does look a bit too bright, though. I think you'll have to darken that, or maybe make his skin lighter and less saturated-- Give the impression of a dark color without making it too dark to see.