first off ty a s**t load Ryu, ur edit opened my eyes up, honestly, I was sitting here thinking (especially when it came to her legs) "how the hell am I supposed to get the shading right with only 4-5 pixels to deal with" right on dude, now if YOU don't mind, I'm gonna be using your edit for further inspiration and development... the girl has to have fiery hair (for this sprite anyway) so I threw that in, also... I had to put her left foot on the ground (can't have it in the air, it just irritates me for some reason)... how bout now?
although I'm not too hot about how much shadow there is around the inside of her right elbow, but I'll be working on that... but anyway... this was just to focus on her hair using ur edit as inspiration (Ryumaru)