E-Man's Sprite R & D

[E-Man]

While I was doing tweaks to my Goomba, I was also working on a project that would lead to two sprite sheets I'll be working on at the same time.



This time around, I decided to do something not related to Mario because I don't want to end up being another spriter who only focuses on Mario sprites. Before I move ahead with that, though, my human sprite needs a lot of work first.

Besides seeing how to get the proportions and anatomy right, I want to see how I should tackle the shading correctly and deal with a flaw in my sprite style.

While using no outlines makes my sprites different from the others, they cause parts of my sprite to merge with other parts of itself (the limbs are the most notable example). An idea I recently had is to use a "selective outline" of sorts to only outline parts f the sprite as long as its absolutely necessary, while keeping everything else without an outline. What do you think?