First sprite, C&C appreciated

[BoosterBronze]

This sprite, Perry, is the first piece of artwork for my game, a comedic adventure that will do for historical thrillers like The Da Vinci Code what Monkey Island did for pirates.



I'm attempting to imitate the style of FoA (my all time favorite game). This is probably the 18th version of this sprite. He's supposed to be wearing a tie and a sports coat. This is SOOO much improved from my first dozen versions that I'm having trouble being objective and deciding what needs improvement anymore.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Mazoliin]

* Reduced the colours, it looked like you saved it as a jpg first.
* Higher contrast.
* Removed pure black + gray and substituted it with dark blue.
* Removed pure white and substituted it with light beige.
* Gave the tie more tie shape, played around with the hair and so on...
* Added highlights
* Tried to give him a more unike face, so he wouldn't look like an anonymous ghost (didn't work to well  ).

         

[Evil]

Mazoliin's edit is great. A bit too many colors for my taste.

I changed up the face a bit. Removed the arm patches, lowered the belt and coat. Redid the legs and the feet. Changed the arms and shoulders a bit to give him a more slouched posture.





Too yellow still, but better than pink faced. Not really Indy style, and the coat looks more like a Mr Rogers sweater. Just an idea, maybe it'll help.

[InCreator]

I suggest to find a good mix between Evil's and Mazoliin's edit.
But aside from both, you have to shade face so it would look more like spherical object and not like cardboard cutout (eck, I work as cardboard stuff designer/engineer, so trust me).

Random google hit for "sphere":



Observe. Spherical objects get darker near sides. And the point closest to the viewer (or actually, light) is the brightest. To cut this short,

* make cheek edges, eye sockets, point on nose between eyes, and area between mouth and nose darker
* nose tip, jaw tip, cheeck tops, lower lip and forehead brighter.
* And leave a shade between for areas I didn't name (don't change anything else on face).

This, and a bit of pixel cosmetics by eye, and you're done.

[BoosterBronze]

Thanks for the tips guys. Evil, I especially love the shoes. I'll try to take all the advice and work you guys have shown and apply it to the next version, as well as the other 6 sprites I need to make.