Requiem main character sprite (help)

[PrettyNier]

Main character. Old sprite sucked dick, so I'm doing him again.
For reference, the old one:


Now, the new one.


Basically I've redone the palette and updated the shading style using more contrasted and slightly more vibrant/varied colors, made him taller and a little larger to better show form and posture and generally made him a bit more detailed.

Unfortunately, I'm still not sure how I feel about the new one. Something about the perspective/posture/anatomy feels off to me. The legs and head are bothering me a lot, and the visible arm is a little eh to me.

14 colors + transparency.
C+C and even edits would be heavily appreciated.

EDIT:

newest version

EDIT 2: fuck that, this is the newest shit

Okay.

I have this sprite, and I feel its coming out pretty well - it has much better shape, definition and coloring then the previous sprite and previous incarnations of this sprite - or so I feel, anyway. The character is somewhat cold and stoic, so the almost hypocritical mixture of relaxation/stillness and firmness in regards to posture kind of works for it I feel and is what I was going for.
But I'm encountering two huge road blocks - it looks terrible on a black/really dark background, and I cannot draw an arm.

The legs lose their form and sort of becoming blobby messes, and I'm not really sure the best way of correcting.


A compilation of all the arms I've done trying to get this to work, none of which I feel work.

Even more so on a black background.

So those are my primary dilemmas - arm and dark background. When it comes to the dark background, what would you recommend? Changing the colors, shading, maybe even style? I can postulate as to multiple different causes and as such solutions, but I can't bring myself to apply them due to the 'changing the very basis of the sprite' factor, and the fact that I'm not sure if they would actually work in the first place.
I've been trying to fix these problems for over a week now on and off, and your assistance would be heavily appreciated. I'm kind of caging myself in on this one and need some outside opinions and assistance.
C+C please?