sprite shading, advice

[pslim]

Hey all.  

I've been struggling with establishing a sprite style for my game for a while and was hoping somebody might have some tips or insights.



I used to do some pixel art, but I'm really rusty and having trouble figuring out where to shade the pants and jacket. The jacket is supposed to be kind of a windbreaker, but it's also a sci-fi prison uniform, sort of. The idea is that all of the prisoner characters are issued a set of standard garments, which they then modify and adorn as they choose, but the player character is new and relatively unadorned in that way. The pants are supposed to be straight-legged, not denim, and not probably as tight as they look right now.  

Ultimately I want to be able to match the pants and jacket to the rendering style of the face, although right now I'm just trying to work out the basic planes. I'm also not married to the colors, but because the background palette is probably going to have a lot of dark browns and dark metals, I'm reluctant to use traditional pants colors like black or brown, and any darker blue just seems too much like blue jeans, I think.

The pose could be more natural, too, but I'm not sure how to make it that way. I don't really want him to be in a hugely expressive or action-ready pose, though, just relaxed.

Any paint overs or advice would be very much appreciated, thanks.


edit:



I've been working on it some more. I decided against the rolled-up sleeves since I wanted the jacket to be a little thicker than made sense with that. I'm happier with most things, but I still don't really feel comfortable with the torso shading at all. I would like to make him less boxy and avoid having him look too athletic but I'm still kind of struggling with the overall shape of the torso. Also, the arms hang weird, in a different way from the weird way they hang in the first one, but I'm not sure what's wrong with them.