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Thanks for the nice summary, Ego. The reason the shading looks so odd is due to how I planned this out -- shading is both for lighting and hard creases. The darker areas are shared with the base of it, which I'll link to at the end. Thank you for the help, I will certainly put it to use!
Also, I am a big Sword & Sworcery fan, which is what I based my original character off of.
Once again, thanks.
Original Base: http://puu.sh/1nFvi
Reminds me quite a bit of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. Good stuff.
You only use that darker skin shade once though - is there a way to incorporate more, in the hands and neck, or would it be optimal to remove it to reduce color count? Just options, it does look good with the darker shade.
Only having shading on the one leg like that is a bit odd, it kinda makes them look like they're different lengths with the angle and all. Also, shading on the left strap of the backpack (our right) seems a bit odd to me.
I love stuff with this style though, and the preview is just as stylish as the piece itself. Nice one.
I really love S: S&S EP myself, and the inspiration shows (in a good way). No problem man. In fact, here, I'll toss out a little more in-depth of what I would do differently.
1. Taking that base, I enlarged it to a size I wanted to look and work at. http://bit.ly/UmPfrl
2. I followed by pulling out the 1-pixel pencil tool in a contrasting color (blood red for me) and sketching out a general organization of what parts exactly mean what for me. In this case, I drew around it and included the backpack, since it would be important to include it. This is an important step for me because while the base is a good guideline, it doesn't do a great blocking out. Just stick with me for a minute. A particular point to observe is his left leg - despite the shaping of the base's leg as being in two columns of pixels, this is a concession that was made due to size, and as it's scaled up it would even out to something in between the two. In your image, it's two separate 5-wide columns, connected linearly at the knee, while the truth would put the two quite a bit closer together. http://bit.ly/SDTg5l
3. A little layer changing and I used a brush to just fill in the general color blocks. http://bit.ly/Z40N1y
4. Blocked in some shades to try and understand how shadows would fall. Significant spots to notice include the lightsource coming from the left at an angle to cast a shadow over the back arm and leg, which you already did. A new thing though is that due to the way the pants would fall, the lower part of even his right leg would be in shadow. I think this is a big part of why his right leg on your version is strange, it doesn't really fully follow the light. http://bit.ly/SDTJEs
5. Shrinky-dink it down to the size of your original. http://bit.ly/WEjDii
6. Compare to your original! http://bit.ly/QqfMCK
7. Here's where I did the brunt of my edits. Here's some highlights: I shrunk the head a bit, altered the widths and angles of the backpack straps to match the perspective, moved the shielded arm in a bit for perspective, widened the close leg and represented the shadows on it, and applied some basic anti-aliasing/shadings. I changed the far leg to be tighter together instead of having a large diagonal, and made an extremely loose hair texturing that is there entirely due to taste. Probably the most obcious change is that I changed the colors to something a bit more muted - it's easier on the eyes, and doesn't have the weird issues I tend to find very saturated blue has. I also ade the decision to simplify the hand to preserve the aesthetic, and moved the arm to look a bit more natural. http://bit.ly/TxcnyB
8. Here's a side-by-side comparison. http://bit.ly/Txcpqq
And that's the final I went with. It preserves the general style I think, but is a little more refined. Hope seeing the process helps a bit - no need to fix this piece in particular if it feels too large of a change, but this general process works pretty decently for pixeling in general. Enjoy it, and thanks - this was inspiring enough to come out of seclusion and stretch my pixel muscles a bit, it's been a while for me. Anyway, have fun pixelling and I hope to see more from you sometime! Favoriting so I can remember to come check :)