After looking closely at the sprite with your advice in mind, I ended up agreeing that some of the shading looks bad, so I revamped the parts I thought were off (namely the boots, skin and the red color in general). Does it look better?
I'm still not sure about the outline since so far I've received an equal amount of feedback favoring each outline, and the more I look at the thick one the more it looks like it fits more.
I'm still not sure about the outline since so far I've received an equal amount of feedback favoring each outline, and the more I look at the thick one the more it looks like it fits more.