Wtf, I got bamboozled by that outline, you got a little illusion thing going on there

59, as a colour count is too large for a piece of this size, so my first advice is that you should use limited palettes (6 to 16 colours to start), that way you will further your knowledge in colours a lot (also you could search tutorials on creating palettes, theres one done in pixeljoint by the great sy0sa which is pure gold). A different way to improve in working with palettes is to work with predetermined ones, if you search palettes at google it shouldnt be difficult to find an interesting one (ex: pico8).

Another technique really helpful to start is to work with outline so you dont have to mess with backgrounds and similar shit at first.

P.D.: wich software are you using?

As you have said I would go for a style between those two, with the simplicity of the one below but with the perspective of the one above. As an advice you should use less colours and better palettes (you can find pretty good tutorials on creating palettes out there). Also your use of the outline in the one above is ilogical, taken that the light comes from a frontal perspective why the outline above the arms is darker than the outline under them?

I will try to submit some example or some personal takes on this character this week.

1. The drawing is pretty good, but I find it lacking in different techniques, you could use more antialiasing and definitely a bit of dithering to avoid pillow-shading.


2. The palette is really dull, because I suppose you have created it by moving the color hud horizontally, so you might want to try other colours to do the purple´s shadows.       Personally I would carry it to reds in the darker colours and I would change the bright purple for a blueish tone.


3. This is more a personal thing, but I would get rid of the purple background to fuse it with the black part of the figure.