Hello pixel artists! Just slapped together a little fellow that's been floating around in my head for some time now. Thing is, I've never really given shading an honest try, so I was wondering if y'all had any pointers for me (my shaded attempts are on the right, complete with Earth's yellow sun as a light source). If you're wondering, I've got a 12 color palette because that's how many colors the guy had in my head (I know the idea is to use restricted palettes, but I just had to color in his black leggings - even if it only is 2 pixels in this particular pose).

I plan on giving him more frames (running, jumping, ducking, attacking, and all of the other things a generic platform hero might need), but before I go nuts I'd like to know how I could improve my shading.



Thanks everyone!