I think there's a lot more here that could be improved than simply how to shade fabric. I think lighting and constructing volumes in general is a concept you could look more heavily into and put some time studying. None of the lighting makes much sense and well frankly they don't look like they have much volume.

Some other things that may help are some anatomy studies and perhaps looking a little into color theory.

Sorry if this sounds harsh it's just the facts. Not a bad start just got to work on some stuff. Stick around enjoy the community and grow as an artist.

Ok well first things first welcome to Pixelation. I hope you can find this place to be helpful in your development.

Generally (always) you don't want to post jpegs for pixel related stuff. You want a format that doesn't introduce new colors and keeps the pixels perfectly intact. These formats would be gif or png generally though bmp will it's not a good idea to post those on the web.

Secondly it would be helpful to see a 1x view of your characters, separate from the background so we can better help you out with critiques and edits if need be.

It seems as though your characters could use with a little more contrast and some darker outlines to boot. They also suffer from stair stepping or whatever you'd like to call it.

Stair > Not

So I took the time to make the characters into a 1x gif (didn't do that big guy cause it's lots of work). It'd be helpful if you posted such of your characters and separated them too, between the knight and the girl.

I feel as though you're missing the point of edits. You more or less copied Archane's edit exactly the way he added the spectral and all. It doesn't have to be so similar, I believe he was just showing you the idea was to get it looking more slimy. Mindlessly copying edits does a person no good. Suggestion is give spectrals a bit more saturation and perhaps luminance.

I would maybe try de-chibi-fying the pictures a bit at this larger size. The looks been over done and i think some anatomy attention couldn't hurt. I think there's loads you can improve, specially the shading and contrast and even color choice.

I made an edit to show some stuff that I think could be done.

you're one of my favorite pixel artists delgneith

Thanks man That really made my day. Glad you feel that way.

The birds are simply beautiful, I'd love to see a complete set. <3 Chickenman is a great design, but the posing is a bit uninspired. The block shading works very well on him. Could you explain the color theory behind what you are doing with the bright blue on the second piece? I'm not really understanding it.

The birds weren't actually meant to be part of a set but you know maybe that's not a bad idea.

I agree on the really weak pose of chickenman. I've never been good with dynamic poses so maybe that's all the more reason for me to try my hand at it. I think I shall since I do like the character design a little bit.

You know there really is no colour theory in mind when doing the bright blue more than just experimenting I suppose. It may or may not have worked well.