Hey there! I wanted to dedicate a post to share how I created the characters for my short sci-fi adventure "The Wreck of the Pulstar VII".

Since I had little time and it was just me making the game, I decided to go for a very low resolution and a pixel art style, yet having enough pixels to create expressive characters. The game was designed at a base resolution of 320x180 and the characters are 100x100 pixels in size.

To create the characters I started with a pretty simple lineart drawing, to define the shape and basic structure of the face and body. After that I added a color layer and, finally, some shadowing in order to give some volume to the sprite. this shadowing is basically a layer with low opacity colored in black and white.

That was the "neutral" expression for each character, looking to define a bit their personality. Here Amy, the doctor, shows confidence in herself.

After that I crated 3 more expressions for each character (surprised, angry and sad), in order to mke them more live alike according to each situation. I wanted to make them move their lips while talking but, unfortunately, I didn't have enough time for that!

Well, hope you enjoyed this bit of how I made the game :) Oh, and I used Gimp for Mac, it's a really nice editor and completely free.

You can play the game here, would love to read some feedback!: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-wreck-of-the-pulstar-viii