Little bit of Character C&C

[Hudders]

Hello everybody; long time no see.

I recently dredged up some character designs I had done a while ago and had a go at refining them. I believe I've improved upon them but there's still something not quite right that I can't pinpoint myself, (I think maybe the pose is wrong or that the front view doesn't match up to the sides... I'm not sure). Hopefully some fresh eyes might help me see the problem.

Thanks.

[Buckethead]

Hey this looks alot like a character I've drew up for a MAGS game once. Is it possible that a paintover of that character was still resting on your pc?

Anyway,

He looks very generic. It's hard to say if he is suppose to be a kid or a man. And he has little personality. Depending on what you are planning to do with him that might be ok.

About the views dont matching up. I think his hair around the ears is a bit shorter in the front view.

[Hudders]

Hey this looks alot like a character I've drew up for a MAGS game once. Is it possible that a paintover of that character was still resting on your pc?

Do you mean this? because the answer is "no". 

I extended the hair slightly:



I don't really know what to do about him being "generic" 

EDIT: A thought occurs. Maybe he is too narrow?

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Because I think the original sprite has a nice clean style going for it, I decided to do a rather detailed edit to give you some ideas on how to improve your color usage and poses to make the character more visually interesting.  The steps are pretty obvious, but in case you'd like some more information I've included some details below.

Update 1:  Corrects issues with the wooden posture of both his down and left frame and gives him a more realistic stance since most people tend to lean on one foot or the other (even slightly) unless in military service.

Update 2:  Slightly adjusts the facial and arm anatomy, making the face rounder and the arms smaller and slightly longer.  It also brings up the waist line one pixel to make the legs longer in relation to the torso.  The feet are also reduced in size.  While it is still not anatomically correct, these changes make the parts of the sprite fit better together, which makes anatomy issues less important to the eye.

Update 3:  Reduced skin tone count by one to fit with the 3 color system of the clothes and hair and altered the skin and hair colors to have greater contrast and slightly brighter values.  Shifting the skin tones toward reddish-purple also helps later when shading is applied.

Update 4:  Added shading to the face, hair, and body to bring out the individual shapes.







The shirt and pants both had good contrasing colors so I left those alone, and skin tones are typically a subjective thing since people either prefer them redder or more earthy.  I think earthy sacrifices some of the contrast the shades can provide, but either way you want to focus on colors that contrast enough to contribute to the look.  Also, an additional highlight for each part will help bring out shapes even more, though in the case of your sprite I didn't think they were needed since it's clean and well presented.  Nice work!

[Hudders]

Thanks ProgZmax, that's really useful.

EDIT: Here's what I have now...





Not sure I got the side view right. He looks like he's thrusting his crotch out and/or struggling not to fall over.

EDIT: I see what I missed. You moved the head back slightly. Gotcha.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Looks good, just bring in his right leg a bit at the top to avoid the fat/pelvic thrust look and you should be set.