I had a little fun at work and had a few ideas so I did a little rough scribbling, I'm not sure how realistic you wanted things or if you wanted them more representative but I tossed a couple ideas in there if you wanted to go a bit more realistic and take in a few of the ideas others tossed in. I made the water flow a little less smooth and a bit more random, the mountains less like big rocks, and the trees more like a forest (though you might have wanted them to be giant trees), and added a little beach like area. I didn't want to go too much further because I didn't know what you had planned for the other land.

Don't be afraid to give your major elements a little more form instead of cutting them right off, let them feel their way into the land like real objects would. Also remember that water gets a lot of it's darker colors by depth especially from afar.

I totally understand your point, it was a concept my buddy came to me with to do a small hunter sprite in vein of the zelda/pokemon/whatever perspective and he wanted it in 16x16 so I pushed back a bit about it, haha! Then he wanted it to look more like that stereotype talking about the plaid and for some reason I thought it would be more do-able.  But the size limits he wanted was mainly why he was a bit square inside the bounding box. My very first concepts were a bit wider and taller even.

I love your edit, for some reason I didn't think to define out the little muscles in his arm and give him more of a pose. (maybe I should stop doing this right before bed, haha) and the animation is totally what I had in mind when I was spriting him though I'll probably add a little more muzzle flash if I can get him to that point. You even fixed my sad little bushes! 

I might try and at least move him to a more red-ish cap or something, depending on how far I can take the look with him hopefully I get some extra time at the office today to give it a shot!

I totally agree about the color ramps, don't be afraid to separate your colors more to create better depth. Also don't be scared to use those separations to create shapes within your piece. To add to the reference note, don't be afraid to take a look at real life examples too. Light works in weird ways especially on metal and it's worth studying a bit. (I admit I need to do this more myself)

Super quick edit while I'm at work:

I was talking with my friend and he wanted me to whip up a concept hunter sprite (as in shoot deer, drink beer style sterotype  ) for him. As I got further into the design he wanted me to give him some plaid/make him look a bit more like that style sterotype and I realized that I have no idea how to make a good looking plaid in low pixel count. I'm trying to keep it constrained into 16x32 (he originally wanted 16x16  ) I've been staring at this thing for a while and I think I'm losing the hat shape now vs what I want to accomplish.

Here's what I thus far: (please ignore the shoddy background, it felt more natural to draw on some sort of scenery vs the normal mid grey for me this time)

Thanks again for the help everybody, I think I'm feeling pretty good with how it came out now. I know it can always be better though I learned quite a bit about making paper, hehe!
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