Hey everyone, sorry about all the text, I just read the entire thread and wrote my thoughts as I went... Thank you.
Making the hood less pointy doesn't appeal to me, I like it the way it has been for the past 13 years or so. (And I disagree with showing more of Magus' face w/hood) A random idea of mine is to have the face down dead animation be him with no hood, it may or may not make it look more like a failure stance. (And if it's hard to make the downed magus w/ hood on then it makes more sense)
I do like the cute lucca portrait, but I think the hooded portrait deserves some spotlight, it's very cool. After all, these sprites are also for future projects right? The portrait Justin3009 showed looks amazing, but I don't know if the lining should be too orange, I've looked at the values of the 3 main orange colors and I think you could add a moderate amount of blue to each one to pale it up a little (The more orange lining is a little too vibrant IMO, but not by much)
Maybe you could use the first portrait and make the lining more vibrant, just slightly though.
I think his face is the right color, I would just modify the band/lining.
And the prophet with darker cloth doesn't look right to me.
I think the lining was two orange and that threw everything off balance.
I like it less every time you change it!
Great job on the progress so far everyone.
And justin3009, just to recap on what I thought so it is clear, I think when you made the lining more orangy, you over compensated and it threw off the balance that the first portrait you made had. And that is why you've had to make more changes to it to get it to look right. I think you should go back to the first step and only enhance the lining a little, but only if you think it is appropriate.