Hiya KidChaos! Good to see you here. You've come to the right place to learn. 

Yeah, I did try it with both actually. I liked the fact that the blue was darker, but I thought the saturation of it was too overwhelming. It almost made her skin seem even more saturated, whereas the gray seemed to tone it down a bit. So then I decided to go with the gray. 

It's not your program, it's how you use it. 

MSPaint totally sucks, but that doesn't stop you from making awesome art with it. 

I agree with Willfaulds on drawing guidelines to see if all the parts match up. However, I don't think you should draw a 3/4 view of the head. I think he should be looking in the same direction he's walking ingame, otherwise it would look weird.

The side profile does look wimpy, so I'd beef him up. Push the shoulders and feet back for a more powerful stance. The pecs look like boobs, don't make them stick out like that! Also, make the head one pixel deeper, make his hair more squared off like the front view and include a sideburn. That will make his head much more manly.

My edit:



The skin did look very yellow to me so I edited that too, though it might be a little on the extreme side.

I voted "Other artists/movements", although I use references from nature just as much. I think it's best to study as much material as possible: life, photos, artwork in every medium.

I also think that it's best to visit more than one art community, so that you don't get too caught up in the bandwagons of just one forum. I sneak around just about everywhere, haha.