Making Baldy Look Bald

[Recluse]

I'm having a difficult time getting my bald African-American character to look anything like a bald man.

Here's what I've got so far...



I'm having troubles with the head, as you can see... What I have currently is an alternative to the single-shade head, which simply looks like way too much space.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could get a really smashing looking bald head in the very very small amount of pixels I have?

[pslim]

If you want him bald, rather than having a buzzcut (which is what it looks like to me, now), I would suggest shading the head, or at least giving it a highlight. Unfortunately this would necessitate one extra shade on the whole sprite, though.

Maybe I'll try a paintover and see if it's useful at all.

[Recluse]

Hey wow that looks LOADS better...

Is this what you meant?



P.S. Yeah... some how it looked to me like he had some sort of beaded headdress looking thing on his head. Which is totally not what I was going for 

[pslim]

That's pretty much what I meant, yeah. Bald heads catch a lot of light unless they're covered in makeup or something.

I made a paintover, but I hesitate to post it because what you have there pretty much gets the bald thing across with no problem.

I'll post it anyway, just in case it's useful at all. I monkeyed with the skin tone a little to get a higher contrast, and added a darker shade to the outfit.

[Recluse]

That looks awesome!

Unfortunately were I to use the high-color version I would have to upgrade all my other graphics  :o Such much work. I'm satisfied with the lower grade, but you get kudos for completely outdoing me

I'm so not an artist

[pslim]

For what it's worth, I think your sprite is perfectly serviceable. It looks like what it's supposed to be, and that's all you really need, right? Everything else is just a matter of style and practice.

Believe me, I wasn't better than anybody when I started posting stuff here, and if I'm better than anybody now it's only a little and it's a complete accident. 

[Recluse]

Thanks for the support!

I'm trying to make the focus of my game more on the storyline and game play anyway. So as far as I'm concerned, serviceable is AWESOME.