Low-res guy character for C&C

[nihilyst]

Hey, guys,

drawing characters never has been my strength. I just suck at these kind of things. But since I'm planning a new game at the moment, I pushed myself to try it again and pixelled a private eye character.
[imgzoom]http://www.longwayhome.de/zeug/critics/cc_char_01.png[/imgzoom]

I'm happy that it kind of resembles a human being, but I have the feeling that something is horribly wrong here. The lighting on the jacket seems off, but everything I do with it makes it look even worse. On this resolution, I believe, one single pixel has some serious impact on the overall look. I've been messing around with this guy for a while now, but I'm not too happy with him. Thus I seek your help. Any tips on where and how to improve this?

Thanks!

[Anian]

Seems like Gabriel Knight meets OSD.  I suck at shading (so feel free to ignore it), but I tried things with the anatomy - make his stand more trench coat worthy (moved the legs back a bit), changed the shoulders and chin a bit, changed some hair color saturation and changed the hair:
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/dYSqhRR.png[/imgzoom]

[nihilyst]

That definitely is an improvement, thanks I'll try to fix my odd parts.

[waheela]

I like the character a lot! I think Anian's done some good revisions too.

The only suggestion I'd make is using a lighter color for the outlines. I find it a little distracting, since his head and shoes don't have any outlines. (Unless that's the visual aesthetic you're going for and it matches your game backgrounds and w/e.)

Maybe something like this?

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/ENVoqIT.png[/imgzoom]

[nihilyst]

Thanks for the input, Anian. Now I see how awfully off my character looked. I tried to get rid of the messy parts:
[imgzoom]http://www.longwayhome.de/zeug/critics/cc_char_01b.png[/imgzoom]

I've made another character, too, and tried to incorporate your ideas from the start.
[imgzoom]http://www.longwayhome.de/zeug/critics/cc_char_02a.png[/imgzoom]
Not sure about the arms, really. They don't seem to be quite right, but I'm trying to get that refined.

About the lighter outlines, waheela, I think that might work, and I will take it into consideration. I only have one unfinished background so far, but it should give an impression on how it might look in the game.
[imgzoom]http://www.longwayhome.de/zeug/critics/cc_char_0102_bg.png[/imgzoom]
Looking from far away, the version with lighter colors looks kind of ghostly, so I might stick to the darker ones.

Thanks again!

[Damien]

Some ideas, mainly reworked shading, head moved 1px to the left and it's width reduced by 1px. I took a look at some coat images as a shading reference, started with the larger volumes and then worked my way to the details. Defining the shape of the head is a bit tricky because of the small space but I tried my best with such limitations.

[imgzoom]http://s9.postimg.org/yg40zdm2z/cc_char_01b.png[/imgzoom]


Here's how it works on the background now:

[imgzoom]http://s9.postimg.org/ea0j0hqfj/cc_char_0102_bg.png[/imgzoom]


EDIT: Some more tweaks.

[waheela]

Hmmm, I see what you're saying about it looking a little ghostly, nihilyst. To fix that, I'd probably make the colors of the sprite darker and add more saturation. I do still think the outlines clash a little with the background though, since the background has no bold outlines at all. Completely up to you though. (Btw, really beautiful background!)