Trying to sprite?

[Sevenstitch]

This sprite is good design wise, the proportions fit the style and all

but you have a ton of pillow shading and banding, causing your sprite to look fuzzy and flat.

You need to shade with a light source in mind, and shade with her form, not along her form.
When you shade as you have (darkest shades leading to lightest shades in a straight ramp towards the center,)
you create a flat image that puffs up in the middles like a pillow.

Put a point on your canvas to represent a light source and try to think of her a 3d object, and shade here the way
light would actually hit her.

Also, the long lines of continuous colors is called "banding" and also tends to make sprites look flat, and contributes
to pillow shading. try staggering or interrupting long lines of shades with other nearby shades when possible to avoid
them.


Scetchasaurus already linked you here, but our Spriting Dictionary explains a lot of the basics of sprite terminology. It isn't an exhaustive list, but should help.

Keep working on it, you aren't half bad; looking forward to seeing more