Requiem main character sprite (help)

[PrettyNier]

Yeah, the arm on the side is clothing between the shoulder pad and armor thing. thanks for the comments btw

And the other one is mostly cloth/bandage, not that you can see it anyway.

So.

yeah. It's been a wihle and I have ont been satisfied with this sprite and still am not, though I have (in my opinion) improved it greatly and helped to guide it closer to what I want it to look like. But anyway; quote post from pixelation:

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?