My first sprite...

[Gors]

your sprite has

1-jaggy lines. when making a character, you must envision it in 3D and sketch a post with that in mind. You did this sprite without thinking in 3D, which caused it to look flat and without any perspective. Do you know those Egyptian drawings in pyramids, with men with rigid anatomy? It's like that.


when drawing, or spriting, you ideally should work on the shapes, perspective, volume to make a good work.



in this case, even if the strokes are simple, the lines clearly depicts a cat, and the volume/depth is perceptible. See how the hind legs are near the front legs, and the balance between shapes. This also obviously applies to cartoons, as seen here



so, try representing the volume in your drawings.

2-posing could be better, as well as its expression. What is it doing? What is it feeling? Drawing and pixelling is also giving a character... character. Right now, it seems to be scared with those huge eyes, but the body doesn't say the same thing (because of the lack of volume and anatomy).

3-Anatomy is important too. And it resumes to studying. Study cats or similar bodied animals such as lions, tigers etc. to get the idea of how their bodies work, the muscles, the bones. Don't be afraid or ashamed to google references, they are your greatest friend and many artists resort to them to get the best pose.

4-Colors are important to give volume. Along with the lines, shading is really important to make the characters pop. This being said, you must learn the shading's concept.



the general rule is to shade the opposite side of where the light is. If the light is coming from the left, the right side should be darker. Different materials are shaded differently; opaque objects are shaded like the ball in the image; metallic objects get harsh contrast and ambient reflection, and fur gets textures to simulate each hair.

Finally colors aren't meant to just get lighter and darker. If that was the case, being an artist would be easy!



this is the 'color star' or whatever you think it looks like. Those colors are all the same brightness level. However, notice that blue-ish colors are darker than yellow tones. You can use this to your advantage and give your dark hues a tint of another color. You'll be impressed how much of a difference this does!

If you want more pixelart/art references and techniques, please refer to the Spriting Dictionary pinned in this forum.