Larry the Swordbarian

[Hoeloe]

His hand (the one not holding the sword), face, feet and legs look extremely strange. For one thing, clothing doesn't usually hug that tightly to the skin, it looks less like he's wearing torn trousers and more like he's spray painted himself orange. There is also a lot of black when there doesn't need to be, and thus your shading is totally pointless. Shading can do the job (and do it better) that you're making your black lines do. Especially at this size, black lines are ugly and make everything very messy. What you've done is drawn the entire shape with an outline, and almost applied shading as an afterthought. Shading is not something you just add at the end, it's an integral part of the sprite and gives everything depth and volume. A lot of your shading doesn't do this, and seems to be there just for the sake of being there.