Totally metal! I may in go for a bat plague, I wish I could do snake-projectiles too but perhaps the in-game counterpart (the nuclear tadpole-looking 'magic arrow') is too characteristic to mess much with, dunno. Do like.

My original impulse was to keep a dark background for the contrast and creepy dungeon monsters but I found getting the limited skin tones to look anything like natural under ambient sort-of light was pretty tough, so I tried the in-game sprite/dungeon palettes and kinda liked it.

Are the arms across the chests an issue? I don't see the cutting and I'm not sure what of importance that they could be obscuring (one very historically accurate viking sports bra?). I find the extreme foreshortened alternatives a bit harder to read/a less interesting silhouette anyway.

Don't really understand the yellow-washing of the figures: better contrast?

I guess it's hard to say without playing the game but I'd really like opinions on the appropriateness (or otherwise) to the game this feels while I'm thinking about trying other things.

Hey thanks! It’s nice to be back and about, I’m trying to find an excuse to work on some pixels.

Regarding to the design choices:
Like in reality, not everything has to be out of the same period of time.
This armor design has it's own past.
The crude industrial stuff is left from thr original period as they were designed the first time.
The adjusted elements are out of the modern period and featuring the style which is currently "in" in the world.

Yeah, the intention of a novel history and ‘long tail’ technology can be really cool but is definitely a bit trickier to communicate; dude doesn't particularly appear retro-fitted or cobbled together (to me anyway); more off-the-assembly-line premium Verne-tech™ with some unaccountable decor. Again though, it works fine but design talk is good practice and interesting to me.

I like the idea, I might have guessed zombie the demoniacally possessed though; are ghosts not usually a bit more incorporeal? You see through ‘em a bit, not really affected by scene lighting etc. Probably there’s many and varied kinds of ghosts but I had a go at the translucent effect using the fog idea you had which I rather liked; it might be easier to sell with more/more colourful background stuff though.

I changed the angle of the lamp to a bit more straight on 'cos it was a bit hard to place in space; seemed like it might have been over the brow of a hill and so not have been casting so much light into the foreground, probably should have raised it up a bit too I guess.

I also second the love for those gnarly 1-bit bushes you had going before, anyhow stick at it!

So I decided to follow up to Facet’s advice and go back to drawing from life. I have some serious shortcomings when it comes to create stuff so practice will do me a world of good.

I feel like I have to clear up that this is actually what I was trying to advise against (in a previous thread) for a couple of major reasons, them being: this isn’t from life(?) and detailing, making alterations to existing work surely can’t help with process? I might’ve jumped the gun talking about constructive stuff there anyway ‘cos it’s dependent on observational stuff that you are working on.

I want the final version to be super realistic.

     
A few people have asked why you wouldn't just trace some of this kind of stuff if you’re not really aiming at much interpretation; a lot of the crit you've received (like just now) is via direct comparison/sampling/overlay and really you shouldn't need a lot of that done on your behalf; the source is the solution.

You’ve deflected tracing as being ‘cheating’, but what skill is it that you’re cheating yourself out of? It’s basically shape recognition; learning to see past semiotic value (what you know the image to represent) and instead as the pattern of coloured shapes that it is.

Putting the right patch of colour in the right place is clearly a lot harder than it sounds but rationalising like that (along with working big to small), might allow you to stop getting hung up throughout on very specific and situational problems like the following:

On my picture, the distance of her but to the side of the canvas is about right. If you look at the reference picture, you’ll see the extremity of the butt is more or less aligned with the left shoulder. On my picture though, the shoulder is really far from the side of the canvas. Why is that?

All the answers to those kinds of issues lie in measuring and comparison whether it’s physically doing so or conceptually (by eye), and actually this isn't the kind of stuff that benefits much from a lot of forum nit-picking to achieve some polished work if the goal is to build skill; it’s a case of personal study and a lot of repetition.

I hope you feel i am taking to heart all that you have to say ^^

Absolutely! You've addressed everything brought up even if it wasn't what you might have set out to discuss .

Losing feeling & the magic of suggestion when you’re cleaning up is a perennial problem but my working preference is to clean up only when absolutely necessary . I just typed out a bunch on linework and method versus insight in a neighbouring thread, so that may be sorta the same stuff you're thinking about.