A new art style - need critic

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Not sure if you will find this useful or not, but it was mainly an experiment in pure grayscale vs. purplish grays.  What I did was redraw the characters in shades of gray with a light gray outline and then see how they stand out on a background with a purplish hue.  I shaded the wall behind them, the ground and the tree very quickly by hand to add a bit more color depth so the characters really stand out.

Again, I was just playing around a bit so I'm not sure if this will be useful or not.

[ildu]

That looks awesome. I say go the ProgZmax way. I'm a poet and I don't even know it.

[big brother]

Since, ProgZ posted a paintover, I guess it's ok if I do some edits to Zooty's, too.

Here are a few style variations I recommend (keep in mind that the sprites are pretty boring, I just didn't have time to make them cooler):

#1

Changed the background black to a dark gray. Left the bg messy but cleaned up the sprites. Now they stand out (against any part of the bg), like game characters should.

#2

Ok, this one would require cleaning up the entire bg (only did a small part, since this is my lunch break). Basically, none of the colors in the sprites are used in the bg (and vice versa). The sprites now stand out against the bg, while keeping the original dreariness.

#3

This version is the one I recommend most. The hue shifts make it more interesting to the eye. It's really no more complicated than #2. The sprite colors and background colors are still separate, but now the background uses a lighter shade (since it can now without interfering with the sprite colors because of the tints). I don't think it loses the spirit of the original.

I think Series of Unfortunate Events RPG would be cool... There could be three classes: inventor, reader, and um...biter.

(It took me a little longer than half an hour to make all three of these, so I don't think using any of these variations will slow down your production time that much.)

[Akumayo]

I DO like the class idea.  I can see it now even.  They could all carry the same inventory, but if you're the reader, you can interprate more from any article or book than the inventor, and well... of course more than 'biter'.  If you're the inventory, you can mix & match items, but not if you're the other two.  And the 'biter' could be used for special cases such as... I don't know, be creative.

[DonB]

You guys doing the paintovers exactly how i pretended it to be better.. with cleaner sprites to stand out the blackwhite background.. very nice.. but of course do what you want yourself zooty! its your new style! 

[Kinoko]

I think big brother's third example is the way to go, it looks stunning.