Straighten out those UVs. You'll have a hell of a time painting sharp details at a diagonal at that texture size. With smaller textures, you really want the UV edges to be as close to vertical/horizontal as possible without introducing too much stretching/warping. The main shell, for example; you can straighten out the back row of edges. The side panels should probably be overlaid on each other (go with the orientation of the top one). Looking at the flats, you're going to want to move and resize stuff to maintain similar texel density; right now the main shell is being given less than a quarter of the texture space, even though it's going to come under the greatest scrutiny. You can probably get rid of the underside entirely in the geometry, unless you plan on being able to see it, in which case you can still reduce the size of it in the unwrap significantly.

Also, what jakten said about the wires sans transparency. Show us wires from various angles.

Ai, fair point about wording/vocab, though we could each probably sit and make points for and against both sides endlessly.

As for the second part, I hope you were agreeing with me, and not refuting me, since that's almost exactly what I said. :p

tetsuo: What Jad said. There's typically a clear difference between homage and ripping/fraud/theft.

Did the artist there get his name dragged in the mud? Was there a lawsuit? Maybe there is a long history of ripping and editing:

Granted, rips/paintovers, etc, may not be noticed by the general public, but they do get noticed, especially if you're talking about a particular style/artist. At some point, though, yes, the line gets a bit fuzzy as to what is theft and what is not.

Realistically borrowing from several sources is going to be quicker than learning all the fundamentals. It might be something pros don't have to do, but I'd be interested to know if they otherwise are forced to compromise their 'honor' due to time/budget constraints. Of course the hobbyists say never rip, just spend another 10 years meticulously practicing before trying a paid project.

Honor doesn't really play into it. Influences are going to come from all over the place, some more intentional than others, and ultimately as a professional, you use whatever tools are at hand to complete a job. That said, if you're going to be editing the hell out of a sprite, why not save yourself the trouble of reworking something and just use reference instead? If you're going to rework a sprite to a different style, for example, I can all but guarantee it's going to be less hassle to start it from scratch using something else as reference. And now I shall re-quote the important parts of your statement:

the hobbyists say never rip, just spend another 10 years meticulously practicing [but] learning all the fundamentals...might be something pros don't have to do

Can you see how backwards that statement is?

Spend a couple of tris and give him a nose. With the polycount, you could get a nose, and even some ears on there, possibly a mouth. From the shots (post wireframes), it looks like you simply took a subdivided cube with a neck and moved some verts around. Be bold: cut some edges, turn them, tweak them, study other lowpoly models to see where they place their edges. Also, your texture is crying out for some contrast. Additionally, at the resolution you're using, you'd be better off painting and then doing pixel touchup, rather than doing 4/8-bit pixel work.

edit:
also, feel free to lose the watermark. It's distracting, and doesn't stop anyone from stealing the images, were they so inclined. Just stick with the title and info text. Really.

Cheers, Ai, those are pretty neat. Looks like I'll have to do a bit of digesting this evening.

ptoing, I guess my main aim in asking was more of a productivity question than anything; less to do with regular gradients/transitioning, and more with getting a first-pass irregular dither pattern fill to tweak (say, to initially define a rough, irregular surface). You're right, though; in most cases the standard dither patterns work perfectly well with a bit of hand editing.