The problem my friend, is that the colours you are using, makes the shading barely noticeable.
You also havent fixed the perspective issue, wich could be dealt either making the face in the same perspective as the legs or viceversa.

I took the liberty of making a few edits, see if any of them do you good, if they do, study and gather what you can, and retry doing some stuff on your piece; Post the progress, and lets take it from there.



Looking forward to your progress on this sprite.

-Krut

Lets leave the animation aside for now.

Well, the first thing i could tell you is that you post some pictures of your backdrops/stages, right now i think that maybe you are going after a soft/child-drawing like look reminiscent of the Snes gamehttp://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=12201(for example).
If thats the case, the eyes and mouth of the character is contrasting too much with the rest of the character, and you should replace that colour with a softer more similar to the character colour.

In any case, the actual colours of the character are too pale, and you should up the contrast between them at least a notch, the actual outline of the character may need to be a little more noticeable also depending on the backdrop.

The perspective seems a bit weird to me also, since the character seems to be facing a sideview, yet on the animation, we see the legs on a different perspective.

You should also consider a slight hue variation on the colours, wich tend to make the sprites more rich visually.

After that maybe, we could take on that animation, but like i said on the start, leave it aside from now.

If you need any more asistance, im happy to do some edits if you want.

-Krut

The latest attempt i think is a improvement, you dealt with the inner contrast issue on the engines/arms/whatever area...i would still add a darker shade to the "outline" of the bottom wings though.

Im having a very difficult time trying to give out critique, also, its been a while since i wrote in-depth.
I find myself looking at a bunch of threads, where i could see stuff improved, writing half a paragraph and then deleting it.

I think i could help sometimes; In some cases the stuff that "I" think could be improved, i just re-think about them, and get to the conclusion that maybe its just a matter of style, or where they are directing the piece to....and in other cases i see some very "basic" (for lack of a better word) notions of art...you know people just getting into drawing and shit, and finding pixels as a medium.

Ive seen posts of Helm or Ptoinger with stuff like "Go draw in pencil, or study anatomy, or stick more closely to real anatomy first or... whatever" wich i agree its still valid...but....
the big ass BUT...

I still think its wrong in both cases; In one side we are excluding a group of people, that maybe have found in pixels, a medium in wich they can express themselves; we also know that in base to a particular medium, you extend and apply that particular medium knowledge to the others; hence some of the stuff you learn in pixels help you out on hand drawing, painting, and whatever.
If they chose pixels, as the medium, we shouldnt  send them to fuck themselves, and learn to draw on paper first.
I think one should (hippie corny shit on its way) embrace and nature that person, that may be just either expresing themselves, or naturing a talent.

In other cases, we see people that i would dare to say, make conscious "mistakes", wich may in lots of cases make the piece look weird to some members, thus, they say "hey, you gotta change that or whatever, is weird, odd, not anatomically correct",; To me, being anatomically correct is nothing to write home about, if i wanted an exact replica, i wouldnt say go study anatomy, id say, go grab a fucking camera and take a picture.

Granted, it does play a role, but it doesnt determinate the "play". We should construct their anatomy knowledge according to their current direction/style or vision, and not building it all on top of the same ground; i think it would serve on more people with different styles and "takes" on maybe the same aspect.... In a world where everything looks like something already done...i think maybe thats the direction we should take.

Dunno, maybe im just rambling and talking nonsense....anyone else have something to share on this topic?