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[Mr. Carlson in "Give Us the Box!"]

Hi all.  This is the first background for our game-in-progress, Mr. Carlson in "Give Us the Box!"  It took me about twenty thousand tries to finish this, because I was unable to decide on a style for coloring/shading.  Eventually, I ended up with this, which ironically happens to be the most simplistic out of all the styles I tried.  Go figure.

This is Mr. Carlson's cubicle.  Anyway, I'd like overall C+C, and I also need ideas for what to put on Mr. Carlson's desk.  Right now, there is a laptop, a clock, some binders on that shelf, a pen and pencil in the drawer below the desk, and some TPS reports ( ).  What else should I put do you think?  He works at a generic large company.  His job isn't too important since it's abandoned quite early in the story, almost immediately.

I hope these aren't stupid questions, but I've searched the documentation and the Beginners and Technical boards and not found answers.

Regarding letterboxing, my letterbox option is greyed out in my General Options screen, and I can't seem to figure out how to change that.  I'd like to use letterbox mode for my game.  

Also, it says "Use letterbox (320x240 / 640x480)" as the explanatory text for that option, but I was under the impression that letterboxing made it 320x200 or 640x400.  Is this an incorrect assumption, or is it saying that letterboxing can only be USED in those original resolutions, as opposed to the new 800x600?  

Also, is it possible to have certain screens NOT be letterboxed if we use that format for the rest of the game?  For example, I want my logo and intro screens to be fullscreen, but the rest of the game itself to be letterboxed.  

And finally, when I choose 640x480 resolution, why does the room settings screen say "Relative Size: 320x200"?  I'm not sure I understand the concept of relative size, and even if I did, I don't understand why it's 320x200 instead of 320x240, since I'm working in 640x480 instead of 640x400, which I guess is what I want to be working in.

I hope I haven't confused myself into thinking letterboxing is the opposite of what it is.  If that's the case, about half of those questions are even stupider than I already realize they are.  Thanks for any help anyone can give.

Hi all.  After hours and hours (and hours) of pushing pixels, I have completed my first attempt at making a sprite.  This is Mr. Carlson, the main character in the upcoming game from Chapter 9 Studios (all of two people), Mr. Carlson in "Give us the Box!", to be released whenever it's done.

After spending hours making this sprite, I realized it was far too small to work in 640x480, which is what we're using, so I had to double the size and try to reduce all the 2-pixel lines to 1-pixel.  That probably doubled the amount of time I spent.  I'm pretty certain this whole deal shouldn't have taken as long as it did, but hopefully I'll work faster in the future.

Anyway, here's what I'd like suggestions for:
-shading everywhere, most notably in the hair
-everything about the shoes and hands
-the dithering
-the whole thing (seriously, I want to know everything I could improve on)





Thanks for your help! Don't laugh (too much)


EDIT: sorry for posting so much, but one more thing.  I was fairly influenced by LucasArts when making this (though that's probably not obvious given the quality difference), and I was considering removing all of the outlines like in LEC games such as Monkey Island or Fate of Atlantis because I think that technique looks nice.  I wasn't sure how to not make it look stupid though.  Would that be a viable option in 640x480 or does it work better in low-res?