Hello everyone!
I started to work on my second "project" and I need help with a simple critique so that I can be directed in the right direction to finish this completely. I'm still learning pixel art at the moment but I want to extend my skills a little more. I started this yesterday and felt that I need some guidance because I don't feel that this piece came out how I wanted to...

I made two versions, one with and without a cape. I was originally going for the version without the cape but I'm liking it with the cape.

and


I was going for a really dark yet simple color palette but I can't seem to figure out how. Help is much appreciated!

He looks like a hobo fighting with a mangy sewer rat to protect his shopping cart.

Well, I'm still learning a lot at the moment as I am still in high school. Currently, I'm still a beginner and to my eyes, it looked good to me but I'm sure others see that my piece can have more improvements which was the reason why I came here. I treasure my piece more when I feel that it is successful in my own eyes but yet others don't because they can see a lot more work that could be done to it.

I used all of the suggestions together and made a mix of everything. I quite like this.

I did more editing and changed the sword's angle and edited small pixels in some areas to improve better look!



and just to show you guys, this was my original drawing



I was going more for "serious" than aggressive. My original thought was that this particular gnome has been fighting the wilderness and has been roughed up by the nature and is ready for another wolf to come by.

Shouldn't the sack be the traditional red handkerchief bundle-on-a-stick?

I also thought about that but I don't know how well it will show with the red hat. Use the same color?

Main complaint was the sword's angle. I decided to assume the pose was a casual one.
When casual and relaxed it doesn't seem natural to hold a sword that aggressively.
I grabbed an 18" ruler, stood casually, and found that my strong tendency was to relax my Sword of Measurements hand until the ruler was pretty much parallel with my forearm.



Then did other stuff.

Actually that looks amazing!

But I was trying to avoid using different color of shades but I'm sure you just did that for the funs.

As for the sword angle, I wanted for this gnome to look more aggressive, almost appearing aggressive. So having that in mind and the fact that the sword angle is awkward as is, maybe we can point the sword a little bit above the 90 degrees to clarify the aggressiveness?

As of now, I'm mainly concerned for the sword and the anatomy.

So I got to change the colors as Pix3m illustrated and this is the result (without the distortion of JPEG).



I removed the dark borders the shield had and I think it looks slightly better but still bad in a way... The sword and the shield is the biggest problem.

As for the color theory, I'm self-taught and I haven't gone professional yet with my art. I'm sure I'll improve as time passes with practice! Thanks for the critiques so far!

As of now, I'm trying to figure out ways to fix the sword and the shield.. Looks terrible!