Going back through some of the games that I'm using as inspiration, none of them are as flat shaded as the ones that I have right now. All are on the shaded side of things and the style ranges from cartoonish (Eye of the Beholder) to semi-realistic (Lands of Lore, Realms of Arkania). Arkania's portraits has some variance in them depending on the type of character illustrated. Some were more serious looking with a painterly style while others leaned more to the cartoon style probably because different artists were involved but all had depth.
I think the ideal spot is to walk the line of semi-realistic with just a hint of cartoon style to lighten the mood.
Yeah, I find the artwork less frustrating, more relaxing, than the programming but I'm better at the programming than the artwork. I tend to intersperse the two together so that I can use the artwork to relax and completing a piece gives me a feeling of accomplishment. The only problem I have with artwork is indecision because I'm still an amateur. lol.
I looked at Curious Expedition 1 & 2. It looks like they changed from pixel art to vector art. I'm not really a big fan of vector art unless it is done really well. I don't use vectors except with interface elements. When I draw character with vectors they always look like colouring book drawings so I tend to avoid it unless that's the look I'm going for.
When I settle on a portrait style, I'll release another dev log about it.
