This sprite, Perry, is the first piece of artwork for my game, a comedic adventure that will do for historical thrillers like The Da Vinci Code what Monkey Island did for pirates.
(http://geocities.com/flashhsu/Perry1.png)
I'm attempting to imitate the style of FoA (my all time favorite game). This is probably the 18th version of this sprite. He's supposed to be wearing a tie and a sports coat. This is SOOO much improved from my first dozen versions that I'm having trouble being objective and deciding what needs improvement anymore.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
* Reduced the colours, it looked like you saved it as a jpg first.
* Higher contrast.
* Removed pure black + gray and substituted it with dark blue.
* Removed pure white and substituted it with light beige.
* Gave the tie more tie shape, played around with the hair and so on...
* Added highlights
* Tried to give him a more unike face, so he wouldn't look like an anonymous ghost (didn't work to well :P).
(http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff259/monkey_e/Perry_paintover.png) (http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff259/monkey_e/Perry_paintover.png)
Mazoliin's edit is great. A bit too many colors for my taste.
I changed up the face a bit. Removed the arm patches, lowered the belt and coat. Redid the legs and the feet. Changed the arms and shoulders a bit to give him a more slouched posture.
(http://www.harryday.com/images/bronze_guy.png)
(http://www.harryday.com/images/bronze_guy.png)
Too yellow still, but better than pink faced. Not really Indy style, and the coat looks more like a Mr Rogers sweater. Just an idea, maybe it'll help.
I suggest to find a good mix between Evil's and Mazoliin's edit.
But aside from both, you have to shade face so it would look more like spherical object and not like cardboard cutout (eck, I work as cardboard stuff designer/engineer, so trust me).
Random google hit for "sphere":
(http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/zoo/toptype/sphere/gifs/sphere.gif)
Observe. Spherical objects get darker near sides. And the point closest to the viewer (or actually, light) is the brightest. To cut this short,
* make cheek edges, eye sockets, point on nose between eyes, and area between mouth and nose darker
* nose tip, jaw tip, cheeck tops, lower lip and forehead brighter.
* And leave a shade between for areas I didn't name (don't change anything else on face).
This, and a bit of pixel cosmetics by eye, and you're done.
Thanks for the tips guys. Evil, I especially love the shoes. I'll try to take all the advice and work you guys have shown and apply it to the next version, as well as the other 6 sprites I need to make.