1: Studying the sprites of "SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium"

So, at least for me, one of the most fun parts of this project is the ability to play and study the games that I love and inspire me. One of those games is "SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium". this game's art sticks out for its beautiful simplicity in that each character only has 3 colors; black, white, and one distinct highlight color unique to the character. this color selection really makes you think about which color best describes the character you are working with. another product of the color palette is that the characters are often shaded with black, giving an almost noir tone to the often cartoonish designs,  another defining feature is the chibi art style. while the head isn't as big as, say, a top-down RPG like Pokemon, it still makes up a decent portion of the sprite and has quite expressive facial features.  each sprite measures roughly around 40 px tall (see Diagram 1). 

the physical form of the characters can be broken down into very simple geometric shapes, often resorting to rectangles, or in perspective, cylinders. when animated, the character's limbs often stretch several pixels in length, exaggerating the motion severely. this results in a very Western cartoon look, almost rubber hose, breaking the joint often. I heavily appreciate the lengths to which such a stylized and fun look was obtained on suck limited hardware. the game itself is heavily polished, and the mechanics will be a part of another study soon. to end this off, here's my attempt to do a riff on this character. on top of reworking the design, I decided to change the highlight and soften the striking black and white to a softer look. 

thank you to anyone who reads this and listens to my rambling, see you next log.