checked color count. 2180 separate colors. definitenly non-pixel art.

With the way the gradients are working in there, I assume this was edited from a photo.

Yep, color flip on the legs are intentional. Doing 'realistic' twisting of the legs to counter the arms during punching would be hard to read, especially for this animation speed. So swapping the colors imply shifting of the legs without changing the silhouette.

With the hair during backstep/lunge, this is the happy medium. It's only a few feet of displacement, so it doesn't need too much movement. But yeah, it does look off in the preview image.

Actual running/dashing animations (the next set of sprites I'll add to the character) will have the stronger hair movement you mentioned.

Thanks! I wanted to have as few animation frames as possible so I could adjust timings in-game without having to draw too many blending frames.

I agree, the flash is pretty strong. My intent was to have an extra degree of impact for those frames, lighting depending on equipped gear.
I've removed it for now. I'll just add the effect it in-engine instead of on the sprite.

That's beautiful.

btw, the outline on the circle on the floor, plus the red drop shadow on your signature... They're non-pixel art elements; they're adding about 100 indexed colors to your piece. They might ask you to clean up those bits.

Yes, that's the original I meant. The item posted as the original image and the preview are the same item (100px by 67px)

Maybe the wrong file got uploaded somehow?

Looks great. But I'm looking at the color count and it's huge (1700+).

Was was there some resizing/resampling going on when you saved the file?

I don't know... It looks pretty feminine to me.

The shoulder pads do make her look wider, but the way the legs and arms are spread helps counteract that shape.

It feels like there's too much empty space around the image. You could either fill in the walls further with texture, or crop the image to get more focused on the door/creature.

Othewise it'd be gallery-ready.

You don't need to scale it to that size...

Also, your image currently is at 76 colors. Even with anti-aliasing the original non-scaled image had too many colors.

I guess instead of an explicit adult section maybe something like NSFW or just  a "special" category? Maybe for stuff that's either too violent, nightmare fuel, politically offensive, etc.

Although code-wise that's probably gonna need a major overhauling and could potentially break the current stuff. (addition of special categories/tags, turning things on/off per user, etc.)

edit:

For me personally I'm fine without one. There's already well-made pixelart in the galleries that have nipples and such.  Besides, "adult section" would sound more like something that's pornographic than simply showing more than a little skin.

Thanks, hehe. I just have a thing for spinning and bouncing things.

It's a classic game convention to make interactive objects more visible, but it's also a way to add some character to the world.

Hrm... now that you guys mentioned it, her arms do look a tad short.

Anyways, I uploaded a new version. Arm length kinda match the legs now.

Does feel like it's been traced. The outlines have this look of aliased scaling artifacts that you'll see in sprites in portable devices like the GBA/DS.

Great concept on this one, hehe. Would it help if the popup was more obnoxious? You know, give the player more motivation to kill it?

Nah, there's barely any errors on her at all. Thing's totally well done. Outline looks off on a light background, but that's just my theme messing with me.

I think giving a softer curve on the character's thighs and her chin would give a more feminine feel to it. The definition of the calves and such already give that sense of maturity. Style-wise, you totally got the Squaresoft vibe.

I'm sorry if I sounded condescending. If you look at my gallery you'll see that I do the chibi style myself. Chibi as a style isn't purely about the head size, but the way specific parts of the character are resized in relation to each other. The character's proportions would be reduced akin to a child's, then the forms are slightly altered to suggest the character's actual age; an older person might have more wrinkles, a kid would have a more playful stance, etc.

If you hide the head, you'll see that the character has the proportions of a normal adult. The legs are around four heads high, shoulders to waist is around two. Had the body been slightly lengthened or legs shortened it would read more chibi to people.

Again, I apologize. Your work has definitely improved a lot, and I can see that you're ready to handle more advanced stuff. I just felt completely offended when you posted that wiki link, and leaving it to defend your work. It felt like a scapegoat to it's like saying "I added that lensflare because everybody does it". It would have been better if you mentioned that you were actually trying to do that specific style, or maybe you wanted to give your own twist to it.

Err... the legs may be close to chibi, but the proportions of the torso, arms and neck are for a normal-sized character, ergo the head looking too big.

Yeah. I think the extension of the background to such a height helps reinforce his expression. Having that cold green color on the face against the warmer browns and yellows gives me a sense of uneasiness, like you're expecting something bad to happen the moment you look away from the portrait.

Excellent work Hatch!

Same with kMaster's sentiments. Reminds me of the way Squaresoft did the monster sprites on their old games, in a good way. Although, the contours of her body are pretty masculine. (forms on the face, legs, and arms are fairly straight)

@Petri: Yeah, agreeing with dpix. I imagine a little store for knickknacks way up north in a quiet village far from civilization.

Need an old, OLD CRT to see this one clearly. Or maybe a portable device. XD

Still, it's a pretty interesting experiment.

Great character concept. I think you could find a way of defining the flamingoes more; they sort of get lost in the dress. I think it's just a minor contrast issue.

Besides that, excellent job.

You could taper off the ends of the gear teeth. It'll make it look more streamlined, and physically it helps gears mesh together with reduced stress. The shading on the metal's pretty good. The polished metal constrasts well with the rougher inner portion of the gear.

The detailing's nice, but I think you could add a bit more dimension to the features. Things like recessing the window panes, pushing the wood posts forward by a pixel would definitely make your piece pop.