First Sprite

[The Last Sensei]

Hello AGS, this is my first sprite and I'm looking for some ways to improve it. It's based off Bill Murray from Ghost Busters. I know the shading might be a little off, I was trying to get it to the best I could. The eyes are messed up, I tried my best to make the eyes look more "realistic" if you would.  Used the image to the right as a ref.

[Hudders]

It looks like you've concentrated too much on getting the same shape as the source and not thought about the guy's anatomy. Where is his right hand, for instance?

Try starting with drawing someone standing straight, facing forwards with his hands by his sides. Not a very dynamic pose, I'll admit, but it would be easier to give you advice if it looked like you'd drawn something from scratch rather than traced it, (apologies if you didn't trace it, but it looks like you traced it).

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

If you want to improve it you want to start with colors with higher contrast.  Right now you're using a very dark purple for the costume instead of a much lighter, almost metallic purple the costumes use.  You want to apply highlights to the areas hit by direct light (his shoulders, stomach, left knee, arm, and face) while using a darker shade for behind his left leg, parts of his right arm, and so on.  Since you are using a reference you can physically see what it is you are trying to accomplish so load up the image in an art program and pull some of the colors from it or try to approximate them better.  To keep things simple, try to stick with three colors per object to get basic shapes and lighting established: 1 highlight, 1 midtone, and 1 shadow.  That applies to his hair, his skin, his suit, his pack/positron collider, and his boots/belt/straps.  once you have done this you can go back and add another level of detail (aliasing) or more colors. 

Right now you've basically got a blank sprite to work with.  It's up to you to fill it out into something visually interesting.