When I pixel, I definitely need some music in the background. I guess I'm more-so a music Nazi; as in I won't listen to anything other than Heavy Metal(Dismember, Kataklysm, At the Gates, Devildriver, a lil bit of Metalcore, Callenish Circle, etc., and ya gotta have some Iron Maiden in your diet kids!!)..
   The atmosphere has to be dark for me to continue pixeling( which I noticed is apparently very normal among fellow pixelers). I also tend to agree that the darker the atmosphere is, the more focused my eyes become with the piece. I also tend to always zoom out and in every 3-5 min. to try and spot anything that looks odd from afar. I even go so far as to stand about 15-18 feet away from the cpu to see if the distance adds any type of flare to the piece that can't see up close.
  As for food, I always need a cup of water near me when I pixel, to take a sip out of every now and then. I ussually have some type of chips to munch on when my cravings begin. Other than that, though I enjoy some fruits moreso than chocolate, mainly bananas and carrots( No, I'm not a vegetarian...)
   I hardly ever watch t.v., so I'm not in the know, and never really have it on unless I'm tired or feeling the need to take a break from the computer...otherwise, I'm a hardcore pixel dork all the way...

Eww, demon porn. 

   Assanine jokes aside, I spy wif' me lil beaner eyes an issue with the anatomy. Of the blue demon's, to be exact. I guess you could say thats the way he's supposed to be built, but I just don't think it fits him.
First and foremost, his abdominal region seems off in my opinion. His left Pectoral muscle seems to be painted on to his chest, much like stretched t-shirt and seem to be out of line with the right pectoral, as are his obliques. I would try and shorten the left pectoral by moving the part where the pec' meets the shoulder further back left, and draw the arm pit. As for the obliques(or ribs, or whatever it is depicted underneath his left pec) they should be less parralell with each other, and shouldn't be drawn out that far.( imo, they look like they are bieng drawn out all the way to his back) Also, his six pack travels all the way down to his third knee( third knee you ask? The Wee "knee" of course!). I think that it would look a lot neater, by getting rid of the lowest set of abdominals, or just scrunching them up a bit. Also, with such a big upper body, he seems to have a deficient set of arms. Very puny lookin' if you ask me...and ditto what Mirre said about the pose of the hand and trident.

   Aside from the obvious crits though, your style seems to outshine these small flaws. I also agree that the red demon is very sexay'. And you got some good beginnings with the blue devil creature, as I like the pose, and the style of shading.(would be keen for some more demonic teeth though)...Great job though, me likey lots!

***EDIT 10/18/06***

I just got in from work and made a quick edit of your work, Trem (hope you don't mind). I'm not very well versed at describing issues I see as some people are, such as Helm, Ptoing, and Pawige. I think the best way for me to describe this issue is by pixeling it for you. Below is my edited version of your blue demon. I might have accidentally killed your style and blended it a bit with mine( sorry!):

I made the following changes: the upper body, the pectorals, buffed up his arms to match his large upper body, extended his left foot a wee bit, added some detail to the trident, changed his head and gave him a bit of snout from a different angle with a different set of teeth. I decided to leave the leg length alone, as I thought that was the intended look...Hope I helped you out!
   

Ok I just finished the piece, and have currently made two versions:

Heres the original with the mute colors I had originally:

I just noticed that you guys were correct (not that you never are) in the fact that the greys in the pallete mute out certain details that would have been redundant to keep in the first place. The details that are bieng muted the most that are important to me, (other than the obvious dull yellow hues) is the shadow that The Maxx is casting( which is taking the form of Mr. Gone's head, The Maxx's enemy) and the dead gooey Isz that the Maxx just smashed into the ground.

So I decided to take heed from Ptoings critique, and try a contrast increase( I think). I think it looks much more vibrant than before. Here's the newest version(don't ask about the color count, since I also lost count):


Other than the high color count(which I just can't seem to nab), and the inexperience of creating a fairly real textured brick wall, I'm fairly proud of it. Again, I want to keep the kind of sketchiness it has, kind like a comic book style, which explains why some lines in the piece are kind of sloppy, and look undefined( mainly in the bandaged feet)

@Ryumaru: I wish I had a decent pic of The Maxx to show you, but most are just him in some action like pose. The truth is, in most episodes or scenes in the comics, he is depicted in a dark alley(being homeless, its his home) curled up against a wall, or inside a cardboard box. He is depicted as a big purple super hero, with a secondary yellow color that runs down the center of his face, and is the colour of his lava made claws. He wears these large bandaged shoe, with some gem or ball in the anchor of each shoe. Here's a link to wikipedia to see some pics and the story line: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maxx

Oh, and don't forget to take a gander at the story line too ...To further see more animations of The Maxx, try watching some of the episodes at Youtube(search The Maxx) and you'll see what I'm talking about. One of the best animated shows in my opinion...Oh and if there is any more crits( or if I didn't understand the previous crits) please don't be shy to tell me, I'm willing to make it as best as I possible can. Thanks again everybody!

most of those crits will be fixed because he stated that it was still a wip >.>;;

uhhh, yeah, I know. Thats why I put that special sentence in italics, in my previous post, to inform others that I just read the rest of the post...kinda ironic though, that one person would call out another for not readin' the post, when he didn't read the other correctly either...By the way, I'm still waiting on this baby to be finished. I like the fancy design of the boots, but I think a true Texan might have some spurs to go along with that sexy outfit....

 

Good sprite design is based around silhouettes. Try taking your favorite fighting game characters and study the shape. Chances are, even without any detail, the character will still be recognizable.

   Actually big brother, all my fighter sprites are drawn starting witha gray blob, and than a silhouettes, including this one. It's the only way I've always drawn them, since using line art seems to confuse where certain shades belong. It seems I over shade some areas of the figure, and call it my "style" which I guess, is the wrong thing to do. Anyways, to understand what exactly I'm talking about, here's an animation of the steps I ussually take to draw a fighter, with the previous character as the example:


   Taking Adarias's crits to heart, I changed the stance of the fighter, and showed the difference between oldest and newest:


Vers. 1: the older sprite
Vers. 2: newer sprite, with more weight on the legs, with original upper body, and pallete
Vers. 3A: newest sprite, with more weight on the legs, and arms closer to the face for a better, guarded stance as Adaria's had asked
Vers. 3B: Same as version 3A except the contrast is popped a wee bit..

Thanks for the help err' body!