Your second version is a huge improvement on the first!

To expand on what pistachio and daramon have already said and shown:



Contrast is very important. It's what helps you make out the mug from the background, and the coffee from the mug.
I've made the coffee a lot darker, and you may notice that I highlighted it facing the mug's highlight. Opposite the coffee's highlight I've added a brown stroke, to suggest the colour of the liquid.

The highlight's there because that's the "edge" the light hits first on the surface, while the brown stroke's more of a diffuse passage of light leading up to the highlight.

Hope this helps! 

Nice character!

I think you can further accentuate the slenderness. The thing about capes is that they tend to hide shapes and make things seem bigger than they actually are, so you have to find a compromise to show the cape as well as how slender your character is.

Here are a few ideas:



As you can see, I've changed the proportions, so that the legs are a lot longer, and I've made him globally taller, too. His arms seemed a bit longer so I've shortened those. I also found the nose a bit wide for an elf, so I've narrowed it. I tried breaking the symmetry, which can make a pose seem rigid, to also suggest the other arm.
One way you can make the legs stand out is with contrast: you can either make the inside of the cape lighter against dark boots and trousers, or darker inside cape against light trousers and boots.

I hope this helps! 

Hello!

Have you found an artist for your project? If not, I am available for work. I've been recently working on tilesets, so I could interest you.

Here is my ArtStation.

Here is my Pixelation portfolio.

Wow, your pixel art and low poly models look great and work great together! I'm particularly impressed by that SWAT truck

Best of luck for future contracts and commissions.