Sorry for this small contribution, but something jumped out at me:

Quote from: Antifarea

...one of the most main things I have been most worried about is developing an specific original style.

Don't, repeat DON'T worry about your own style.  Ignore it.  I mean, obviously, unless you want to mimic someone else's style, but developing your own will happen naturally.  Rough quote from the Animators Survival Kit:

Quote from: the Animators Survival Kit, the author's mother:

Don't worry about style.  Ignore style.  Focus on getting it right, and your own style will happen.

Not sure if that's exactly it, but yeah.

Later
Shrike

Thanks for the tip. 

Gil and Eyecraft: thanks for the input, I'll work on those issues.

NacL: Thanks for comments on the execution process... what you pointed out is a really great idea... don't get me wrong, even though I agree and that's something I should do, I normally use that circle based body so I don't go way too big or too small, same goes for the line that I have on the right side, right close to the palette... for sprites of commercial characters, I tend to go 100 in height tops, maybe a little more or a little less, depending on the character in mind. But I do raw straight outlines, and the color thing is just the idea, but as you can see I draw the outline while observing the artwork as reference, then in step 3 I clean the lines... these are the rules I have been using so far:

1. Circle based body
2. Draw lineart.
3. Clean lineart, maybe do the hair if not done on step 2.
4. Add eyes, add colors in the face, and in the body.
5. Make all details.
6. Shade the insides.
7. Color the black lineart with the darker corresponding colors.

now, extra steps that I had in mind after that:

8. Shade lineart.
9. Fix shading problems.

I didn't do these steps, cause of my lack of skill in both... I will try to work around the execution process, so I deffinitely appreciate your input here, specially in the whole processing part, since you are the first one who actually commented on that. Also, thanks for pointing out the good stuff in the sprite, as well your comments on what you liked about it.

Jad:Well, these were interesting observations you pointed out... really, I never heard of banding before, so that's something new to me. The reason why I left off work labeling as complete, is cause one of the most main things I have been most worried about is developing an specific original style, so instead of going back to old sprites to fix the stuff, I tried making new ones, and using what I think could look better, on the new ones, while leaving the older ones intact... so that way I can see the difference as well my improvement as I keep progressing doing more sprites of different types of characters.

...for example, my first sprite I ever made:

This is Yoko from the old school sega genesis valis games:

*image removed*

take a look at that anatomy, now look at another character I made the next month, from the same valis series:

*image removed*

I mean, here the same valkyrie type female looks more like a woman, it's a more realistic anatomy compared with the old one... these two months I'm on my "goal" of developing an style that I can be satisfied with it... some styles in fact, ones for show (fan commercial characters) and another main style to use as characters in battle in my rpgmaker projects...

On regards your edit, I noted the difference, and have a more clear understanding of certain things... I will be making examinations on it, then I will see how I can adopt those techniques in newer sprites... also, I have been thinking after a while to go back and expand the size of the older characters from january, to have all sprites, or at least most of them go around 100 in Height just how the latest ones have been done... that could be the perfect opportunity to fix those issues as well.

I also want to add, that I'm not trying to be defensive on any of my comments, not implying any of you think this way, but I just though I'll say it... I'm a very expressive talkative person, and I like sharing where I stand, as well letting others know how I see things in my own terms... it helps a lot understanding each other. Once again, thanks all of you for your criticism.

If you guys have the time and don't mind, can you comment on the Valis ones? as well, I will like more focus on the shanoa one, since that's the one most people have viewed/favorited in my deviant art account(http://antifarea.deviantart.com/).

It looks like you could take out a lot of colors in all of your pieces. It's a problem I sometimes have too, where each part has it's own palette (eg skin has it's own colors, then clothes, then armor, etc). There's also some rather harsh outlines in areas that don't really need them, such as between colors on the same piece of clothing. I don't think I could properly do an edit to explain better, so maybe someone else could help you out there.

Other than that, the characters seem a little stiff and don't convey much emotion, with the possible exception of Fei Fong Wong.

Hope that all makes sense. 

That's something I have been avoiding... I want each part of the sprite to have it's unique set of colors though. Back when I started I used to observe some sprites, and I noted that a lot of them have the same colors for the hair and let's say the armors... which is kinda like a turn off in my opinion. On the color limit, that's another thing... I first started using only 3-4 shades of colors, but then I'm working with 5-6 shades now, and plan to keep it that way, since I am still working on the outline shading, which I plan to use 2 colors for it, and then 4 for the rest of the filling of the parts... what I want to achieve is colorful complex sprites.

I know that some inner parts would look better with just eliminating some of the lines, I noted that when I was making that sprite of Shanoa, like the armor as an example... I would prefer to be able to use those outlines still, maybe with another color that blends the pieces better.

Now I don't understand much of what you meant by emotions, a more detailed explanation of this would be great though.

Well, as I stated in my introduction, I have been spriting since january 2009. I'm currently learning and practicing and trying to improve myself... my original characters, as well original sprites in general I will be using them in an rpgmaker project I'm currently developing. Aside from that, I also sprite characters from different commercial games, for fun, and to see how well I can do them.

Here is the latest character I made, in between yesterday and today... I don't use a tablet, raw mouse, in fact I am actually afraid of even touching a tablet haha... I make all my sprites in a program called Charamaker1999, which most people who develop games in rpgmaker 2003 use. To make the commercial sprites, I usually look at the artwork of that character, as reference, so I can cover as much details I can based my current knowledge.

*image removed*

I take a lot of notes, and self-apply myself in details, such as how much time it took me, etc... Here is the usual sheet of how I make my sprites:



As you can see in the sheet, I usually start without doing the skeleton lines, but jump straight into making circles, then I separate the colors of the circles according to the different parts of the body ex. green is skin, blue is clothing, purple can be clothing or skin that is in front of the body in blue, etc...

While I build the poses, I tend to change some things too, it all depends, a few times I change my mind and in even some cases. I would like to hear some criticism on this sprite. Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I actually want to show you two more sprites, one from february, and one of my first sprites from january.

february:

*image removed*





january:
*image removed*