just something i'm working on..

[Bastendorf]

Bastendorf brought up Mario World as an example of pillow shading used correctly, but that's not true. Pillow shading can be found all over Mario World (and in most of the contexts it's used it it doesn't belong at all) and looks just as out of place there as it does on your sprites. If I remember correctly, SMW's light source is in the top right and Mario and many objects are shaded to reflect that. Then you have other objects which are pillow shaded or pretty much unshaded completely, and...
Graphically, it's kind of a huge pile of crap.

You misunderstood. I never meant to suggest it was used correctly. I meant to say that it was used in that way and serves it's purpose. And I couldn't have been more wrong regardless XD. I looked at the exact sprite in mind and it was a lot worse than I remembered.
I would also tend to agree with your stance on the graphical fidelity, now that I've looked at it again. It's not as I remembered it.

Anyway, back to your sprite.
I don't really have much to say (since it's still not finished) aside from the fact that your two darkest reds are so close to each other that I couldn't tell the difference between them at first.

Since we're all trying to help Zye, I wanted to point out that I tried a hue shift to green, in Jason's greys. Not very saturated, though. I think it looks nice. That might be something to try refining, as I barely qualify to make calls on hue shifting.

Figured I'd give it a shot and see what happens.