Character Sprite

[Protostar]

Well, this is my very first character sprite for the game I'm working on. I'd like to make her slightly less cartoonish/more colorful. Need suggestions for face and shading too.

[Protostar]

Anybody? I'm out of ideas how to help that face.

[cobra79]

I think she looks very good.
Your shading though is barely visible. Decrease the saturation and increase the contrast between the shades.
Here is my paintover to show what I mean



I also made her legs a bit wider and tried to give her that business face.

[Afflict]

Shading like cobra said is the main issue. Protostar if this is for a game and your going it alone try and keep things lite cause overdoing it will just have you spending more and more time on characters and the game might never get out there.

[Protostar]

Thanks, I know I gotta practice that shading thingy.

Afflict, what I have in mind is a pretty huge project, full length game, 9 player characters switching at various points of the story. Most of all I want it to look decent, so I'm asking for pointers.

[accolyte]

I agree, it looks very good. Only flaw i can of is that the hands look a tad to big for a girl. (unless your intention is to give her big hands of course .)
By the way, this sprite reminds me a lot of Nico from Broken Sword. Played it recently?

[ThreeOhFour]

Paintover of Cobra's paintover.



- Altered shading of face & legs
- Altered colours of clothing
- Altered shape of face

[Protostar]

Thanks! Especially for that face.

Broken Sword? Haven't played for ages. Would gladly get back to it though.

[MoodyBlues]

Great sprite!  Her pose is great; it gives her a lot of attitude.

The only thing that doesn't seem quite right is her hair; it makes her look a bit masculine.  If that's part of her character, then she's great as is; otherwise, you might give her some earrings or let some strands of hair fall across her forehead.  (If I had a decent editing program, I'd show you.)

[Protostar]

Got to redoing her finally. Darkened the shadows a bit, worked with hands, worked with hair and detailed the face. Here she is:

[cobra79]

The shading is definitely better, but still a bit too subtle in my opinion. There is really no need to be afraid of darker shades.
The face still looks cartoonish. The main reason is the white in her eyes. In German there is a saying that you have to be really close to see someones "White in the Eyes". White means you are either very close to the persons face or the character is afraid of something.
Two pictures of Heidi Klum (you could also look at Seal if you like to  ) to illustrate my point:


In the second picture there is almost no white left even though we are still pretty close and even in the first picture the dominant color of her eyes is not white.

[Protostar]

Yeah, you're right, I'll work with the eyes and I'll have to try harder on the whole face. I think I'll be able to pull a few tricks there. Probably right about darker shadows too. Thanks.