Beginner seeking guidance

[BlackTar in a Jar]

Hello all!
I'm completely new to pixel art but I'm willing to learn. Please excuse my many blunders and kindly help me improve

[(BYOND)Hebrons]

are you sure your new to pixel art o.o ?

[Cyangmou]

looks like a generic guy with a cape - the concept is much weaker than the execution.
You should give some hints how you want to improve it and give us some background infos for what the sprite is used or if it's just practice what you want to practice or where you think you have/had problems.

[BlackTar in a Jar]

It's just for practice. My greatest difficulty with it is with the cloth-effect, showing folds and knowing how much to show. The cape looks a bit plain.
Other than that colour and lighting can definitely be improved, and anything else the professional eye finds wrong with it.

[wolfenoctis]

Looks like Tetsuo from the anime movie Akira

[BlackTar in a Jar]

Yeah Akira is one of my favourite anime's and Tetsuo is definitely one of my favourite characters!

[winged doom]

Good work, but I don't like his hair and black stroke, so, little edit:

[BlackTar in a Jar]

Man that looks awesome!
Thanks man, I feel I've already learned a lot!
I've reworked the the piece according to your example, with a few miniscule differences

[wolfenoctis]

Try to make his stance more dynamic, currently its weak and static. Also use some refferences for cloth to get the folds right. I made a edit to illustrate:

I kept the same basic stance, but just made it more dynamic, I also used tetsuo because I like his colors more. Hope it helps 

[BlackTar in a Jar]

Thanks for the advice, I will work on my piece a bit more
Your edit, though it's very well done, is a completely different sprite however. I wasn't trying to draw Tetsuo even though the cape and hair is similar. There was one or two things about your edit that seemed a bit off, so I edited your edit:




Thanks again, I will try to impliment what I've learned from you.

[Decroded]

Yeah but its Tetsuo! And who didn't want to see that right??
I look at the hair in Wolf's edit and it really feels like it is alive and moving to my tired eyes

Your hair is OK but you should keep experimenting with hairstyles.
I really need to go to bed but just quickly I thought the your hair should feel a little "fuller" by use of more solid clusters...


Ssooo tempted to edit in the mutant arm but its way too late and off topic 

[Facet]

Yeah, I don't think the original is that far off a nice toony look, very quick doodle knocking down materials to 2 shade only (+ select highlights), for a simple cel look, gave him forehead, lengthened arms a tad, and just livened up bits to be more contrasted/eye-catching. I just realised he's somehow turned into Goofy's son though .

[Decroded]

That fixed a few things that were bugging me.
General lack of anything interesting to look at still an issue.

Added a touch of detailing:

Probably too much contrast on his skin, its hard to judge on this work monitor.

[BlackTar in a Jar]

Ok so I changed the character to Tetsuo following Decroded and some other asshole's advice, and tried to impliment much of what I've learned here.
I also changed the palette using some of Wolf's edit. I still don't know about the face, but I'd like to try and keep the general pose, just for a challenge and so it at least feels like there's a resemblance to the original.



Thank you Facet and Decroded again for more advice

EDIT: Fixed a few things