Sprites, Animation, and choice of background style

[MusicallyInspired]

I'm working on a game which initially I planned as a cross between photo-realistic and cartoon sprites (something a little more realistic than Fate of Atlantis, for example, but not exactly photo-realistic either). It's based on a TV show so I took a picture of the main character and scaled him down to Ego-size and this was the result after a bit of editing (the game is in 640x400).



I've not done sprite work or animation before ever but I decided to tackle actually pixel-editing this for animation and this was the result of that. Please point out any mistakes or improvements I could make.



After that I found a picture of the guy from the show facing west and scaled that down as well improvising as I went (there were no legs or head in the picture I had) and made idle frames for west, north and east. The north one I did from scratch over-top the south facing sprite.



As you can see I tried to retain the light source as best I could. I'm basically just look for comments how how I could improve these. I'm not too happy with the north-facing sprite. I know something is wrong but I'm not sure what.

Also, I'm baffled as to how I should handle the room backgrounds for this game. I obviously can't go photo-realistic unless I have sets I could photograph or a top of the line 3D modeling program at my disposal (I have neither these nor the skill for photo-realistic 3D modeling). I'm not too impressed with photo-realistic graphics anyway (PQ4 looks pretty bland, for instance). I'd like it to be on the more vibrant-colours side. I toyed with the idea of mapping small scenes in the Duke3D Build engine and running with eDuke32 & the high resolution pack and taking screenshots as an alternative.

I have limited background skill as far as painting it in PhotoShop from scratch goes. I redid a scene from KQ3 a long time ago and that was the first and only background I've ever done. But the style definitely doesn't match what I'm looking for for this game.


(large hi-res version)

Maybe there's something I can do to make this style a bit more realistic? Of course, my game won't be taking place in a forest but in a more modern city-like area (not to mention 640x400 rather than 320x200). Maybe there's a tutorial somewhere I can read about making semi-realistic art?

[TerranRich]

Hmm... the character sprite does not match the background style, and the first thing that people will definitely notice. If you're going for photorealistic sprites, then you should go with photorealistic backgrounds. I can't really think of anything specific to do to the character sprites to make him match the backgrounds, but he does look very good on his own. He looks very realistic, but with neat edges that don't make him stand out like a sore thumb.

[MusicallyInspired]

Yeah, I know the styles don't match. I was just posting all I am currently capable of and was wondering if I could get some advice as to how I should proceed background-wise or if there's anything I could learn to make a more realistic style. If photo-realistic is definitely the way to go I need some photos. I obviously can't really do that.

Thank you for the the words on the sprites. Good to know I'm on the right track there.