Original Doctor Who Sprites: Need advising

[GuyInAFedora]

I'm working towards making a Doctor Who fan game, one that I would design, write, make all art and characters, and do the music for. Design is coming along fine, the story is slowly making itself work and the music is pretty much finished. However, I have never made original sprites before. Edit: With the exception of the little guy in the corner. And like Accelgors said, he's not perspectively correct.
Now, I have a character that I drew that I don't completely hate, but I can't figure out a good way to make them move. And that's kind of important in terms of making a game, wouldn't you say?
So what I'm looking for is suggestions and advising. Anything helps.



It's the one on the right, in case you didn't guess.

Edit: Darkened the darks and lightened the rest. I think it gave it slightly more depth. Thanks.

[Rakia]

Could you zoom them out to 1x? I'm afraid that the simple shading you've done won't be effective at that size.

Also: Walking.
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=walk...a=N&tab=wi

If you want a smooth walking cycle, you'll need to make more frames. You may want that old school 3 or 4 frame walking cycle as well, which is fine too.
But those first couple image links can show you which parts bend, etc. So there's your start.

[Gors]

the sprite isn't at its best shape now because of the wiry, rigid feeling of the character.

pixelart is a kind of art that makes curves a little harder to deal than a traditional media art, but it follows the same principles overall.

for example, the guy, on top of looking like a stick, suffers from the 'Egyptian drawing' thing, where perspective is all broken and weird. The guy's head is at profile, but then suddenly his body faces us and the feet goes back to profile perspective again. This make no sense, and you should fix that unless you want the characters to look like that.

also the colors would be better if they were more bright, and if possible, matched with the game's environment as a whole. This way, you can appeal others' eyes better and bring down unnecessary colors.

another tip is to avoid enlarging your sprites as it makes difficulf for us to point C+Cs; use 1x pixel ratio on them, even if they end up looking tiny in process. Use a more neutral background color instead of white too, as the complete white backgrounds make the color C+Cs a little hard.

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EDIT - welp, ninja'd by Rakia/OP

analyzing the 1x zoom sprite, it is obvious that the additional colors for shading doesn't work as well. There's little difference between the base color and the shade, making it useless. Choose contrasting enough colors for shadows to improve its volume.

[GuyInAFedora]

Thanks for the tips and the link. I tried to add more contrast to the colors and I think it gave them a bit more depth. I added a real profile view of the character. How is the blue for visibility?

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for example, the guy, on top of looking like a stick, suffers from the 'Egyptian drawing' thing, where perspective is all broken and weird. The guy's head is at profile, but then suddenly his body faces us and the feet goes back to profile perspective again. This make no sense, and you should fix that unless you want the characters to look like that.

Yeah, the perspective never felt right on that. Wasn't sure how to fix it for awhile, so I stuck with it.
I do kind of want the character to be thin and stickish, as it fits with the rest of the game, but is it too much?

[Gwen]

Thanks for the tips and the link. I tried to add more contrast to the colors and I think it gave them a bit more depth. I added a real profile view of the character. How is the blue for visibility?

---

for example, the guy, on top of looking like a stick, suffers from the 'Egyptian drawing' thing, where perspective is all broken and weird. The guy's head is at profile, but then suddenly his body faces us and the feet goes back to profile perspective again. This make no sense, and you should fix that unless you want the characters to look like that.

Yeah, the perspective never felt right on that. Wasn't sure how to fix it for awhile, so I stuck with it.
I do kind of want the character to be thin and stickish, as it fits with the rest of the game, but is it too much?

To fix the perspective with the face, shift his mouth and nose to the right a pixel
I'm happy that you're accepting critique and working to improve your piece rather than whine like most newcomers do. ( I did when I was new )

[GuyInAFedora]

So here's a slightly edited version of the other one. And by slightly, I mean there is a whole one frame of running that I'm not terribly proud of.

[Rakia]

It looks like you shrunk the arms from the standing to running, and it's incredibly jagged, try smoothing the lines more.