Hello all, I'm new at this whole game development thing (though I've been pondering it and looking into it and studying it in some way, shape or form all my life) and my desire is to take character designs that I've created and written stories for and build a beat-em-up game (think Final Fight/Guardian Heroes/Code of Princess). Right now I'm trying to focus on building one level with one or two playable characters just to get things working.
The character designs are here
http://dualmask.deviantart.com/gallery/43571633 and I'm working on building a sprite to try building a beat-em-up engine out of. I originally posted my work in the wrong forum, so I'm reposting here.
This is what I have so far:



(this one's unfinished but I'm working on adding shading, lighting, special effects and an energy beam to finish the combo off).Feedback, crits and comments are welcome. My strength, such as it is, is in character design and I'm trying to get better at animation. Backgrounds are my weakness; I'm exploring various ideas for building them including using World Creator. I really just want to focus on building something playable, even if it doesn't look all that great right now.