WAIT, WHAT IS GWEN DOING, GWEN YOU LITTLE SHIT

[StarSock64]

Before that, actually...

I was kind of hoping someone else would say something because I'm not sure how to be clear about it, but I feel like all the little details put in there are killing its readability. For example, the blue spots on the arms aren't noticeable and they don't really work on a sprite of this size. I'd like to see some cleaner shading with a more clear light source. You could try darkening the entire further leg, making the mask/face darker where the light doesn't hit, or...whatever works. You could be conveying more depth than you are right now. The abundance of outlines might not be helping either.

[Gwen]

Blue spots? That's just the gloves outlining, but I'll make it more noticeable as an outline. Also thank you for the advice, I'll get working on it
EDIT:
Just a few changes, but would you guys say he's more readable?
My willpower is weak tonight, I played the Mass Effect 3 demo and now I want to give the series another try because that Demo was fun.

[Jawnsunn]

Dude, I'm diggin his design. Kind of reminds me of Ninja/Grey Fox in Metal Gear Solid

oh and bro, I edited him as well.

I couldn't tell from the hair that it was a mohawk so my bad. I also found that you tried to put some details on him that really just made the sprite noisy. I simplified the clothing and face to make it more readable to form a radular cyborg sword dude. Also, alot of the colors were really saturated and shades look too similar to the base color. I simply just hue-shifted your colors.

And I gave him a red sword. Thought it would put maximum rad into this design.

[Gwen]

Oh my god I love that so much, thank you for the advice, I'm going to try and match that radularitude with my own spin, will be back tomorrow morning! I am tired heh.
EDIT: oh and before i fall asleep yeah it's supposed to be a mohawk I think how you interpreted it was pretty cool as well though.

[Gwen]

HMMMMM, I WONDER WHAT IT IS THAT GWEN IS WORKING ON? Obviously very very early stages, probably spend the week slowly working on it as I figure out my school schedule for the month; I do know that I have Spring Break this month sooooooo this might take lift off.

[Level 1]

Well a few days later I'm back, hows it looking so far? I tried to not over fold it like you mentioned Metaru.

Hey there, I like this character, very detailed I can see, but there are too many colors here, you might want to limit yourself here, also you might want to work on the shading of the clothes, they are a bit rough, I might try and make a piece to show my points so you can compare it, but in the mean time, keep up the great work.

[Gwen]

Oh that was scrapped years ago, although sometimes I go back and glance at the file, contemplating whether or not to completely rework it.
Thank you for the comments though.

[Level 1]

Here's a very rough sketch I made of that character, it reminded me a lot of Link with a punk feel from it.
Also, I am not sure about a lot of things, I thought the hands were some sort of fire or plasma. And the face, well I improvised a lot, I added a beard because of the purple pixels in the chin.

But yeah, in it you can see the clothing being simplified with less colors and some shading that shows the wrinkles.

[Gwen]

Damn, nice to see you pick up on the idea of the character, including the beard!
I may have to pick that up after I finish Matoi.

[Level 1]

Damn, nice to see you pick up on the idea of the character, including the beard!
I may have to pick that up after I finish Matoi.

Haha glad you liked it, I mean, I had to take a lot of liberty since the original was so rough, but the main point was to show that you don't need so many colors to create a good shading idea, you just need to know how to shade it.

[Gwen]

Well, over the last few years, I've been able to cut down my color counts and patch my shading together, but I'm still pretty appreciative of the edit you showed man.

[Level 1]

Any time, right now I am just trying to make an appearance here on the forums since i am still freshly new, but uh, yeah the character was fun to make, I played around a lot with the face, because I felt like I had a lot of freedom there, so I sorta cooked up that silly smile and eyes haha.

[Iocus]

I was wondering, do you always start your spriting off like this?

It's always a healthy exercise to build off a skeleton, even if it's a rough one, to have the position and orientation of the body parts well established. I know it's kind of a bore to dig up pose and anatomy references, but it can be really beneficial to the end product. Before diving straight into colors, you ought to have a structure so you know which direction you're headed in. You can even use some placeholder colors while you're doing that.

The character designs were pretty cool though, hope to see more of that!

[Gwen]

I usually get a rough figuring of the head, as I usually find a skeleton beneath it distracting, or if I start from scratch I usually have a hard time finding somewhere to start, and then once I get a rough figure of the head, I'll make a skeleton and start fleshing out from there. I make sure not to make a super polished head, I just like having a face to look at as I create something

[Gwen]

Skelly Jelly in progress. I'm not too sure about them legs so far, but we'll see. We'll see.
EDIT: I just noticed the top of her hair is a bit flat.. fixing that really quick.