Notes:
- The all-black tuxedo look makes it hard to put detail into his clothes. I opted to give him a red bowtie and cumberbund, and matching ribbon for his top hat. The cigar ember is the same red. The handle on the umbrella matches his cigar.
- I shortened him and made him a bit more stout, but I’m not sure that I pulled it off too well. He still doesn’t look very rotund to me. I think the tails I added to his tuxedo jacket ended up having an effect of elongating his body, which offset the extra width I added to the body.
- I gave him a few extra pixels at 32×32 on his shoulders, to give a more stooped, hunched appearance.
- The monocle, I felt, looked too much like an eye, so I added the other eye using 128×128 pixels.
- For some reason though, I just don’t feel like this one is right. I haven’t captured the essence of the Penguin, his malevolent greed, and his sneering spiteful glare. I think I’m going to have to let this one sit for a while and keep looking for a way to get it right. Quite possibly just starting over and trying again.
Here’s another attempt that I just made. This time I started over from a blank 16×16 base drawing, and used a much wider figure. The first attempt was based on a shortened, widened Superman figure, but I think this one came out better. The legs are spread wider apart, and I made the pants dark charcoal gray instead of black. I made the hair grey and the pointy nose more pronounced. This one feels more influenced by the Danny DeVito movie Penguin, while the previous one feels more like Burgess Meredith from the 1960’s TV Batman.