newbie sprite artist looking for critique

[theEXcore]

exactly what it says on the can. im new to this pixel art stuff and i want to get as much constructive criticism of my work as possible. i don't have manny people around me that both know how to sprite/or are critical to point out errors or offer advice so be as harsh as possible! please and thank you.

i have been spriteing for about 6 months so im still fairly new to all of this jazz

first up is some wips: i was asked to mimmic the maple story style but maple story sprites are hella garbo so i fussed with it a ton until i got something i liked.
 



here i was trying to develop my own style to use for a larger project later on. most of these are super wip feel free to rip them to shreds.

 

 
 after taking some time doing other things i went back and reflected on one of my first attempts. does it look like a solid improvement?
 

<new on the left and old on the right>

thanks for reading i look forward to your responses. please be as critical and honest as possible.

[Roach]

You have a stray pixel in saitama's run on his head. 

Edit: As Wzl pointed out I preferred the left one too.

Edit2: I just noticed quite a bit of your animations have stray pixels in places. Those could be worked on.

[wzl]

your style gels a lot with me. really like it.
What catches my eye though is that you occasionally use outlines, but not consistently, to a point where it feels weird to me. I'd suggest to either use them, or not. mixing them is kinda strange.



The pauldron seems disconnected from the rest of the sprite. again, lack of outline, and the shading is much more voluminous(?)


i actually prefer the left one. she has better gesture and curve to it. the rough shading also hints at depth, while the other one looks rather flat or uniform. In any case the left one is much more dynamic.
All in all good stuff

[MysteryMeat]

one thing I'm noticing is a bit of weird "flicker" on the left leg of the bobbing girl. Our left, not hers.
Right where the sock starts.

(also, saitama's missing his cape man! Can't forget the cape dude!)

[theEXcore]

You have a stray pixel in saitama's run on his head. 

Edit: As Wzl pointed out I preferred the left one too.

Edit2: I just noticed quite a bit of your animations have stray pixels in places. Those could be worked on.

thanks a lot. like i said, these are mostly wip animations so i'm still working on them. i figured they were presentable enough for me to post them up somewhere and get some input on how they looked currently. i'll keep a better eye out for those stray pixels regardless. no habits that result in cleaner work can be bad ones, right?

your style gels a lot with me. really like it.
What catches my eye though is that you occasionally use outlines, but not consistently, to a point where it feels weird to me. I'd suggest to either use them, or not. mixing them is kinda strange.

The pauldron seems disconnected from the rest of the sprite. again, lack of outline, and the shading is much more voluminous(?)

yeah, i prefer not doing outlines at all, but for the especially large headed sprites, they're trying to mimic the maplestory style for... community reasons. and yeah, the pauldron wasnt quite finished. i was gonna clean it up after the fact.

i actually prefer the left one. she has better gesture and curve to it. the rough shading also hints at depth, while the other one looks rather flat or uniform. In any case the left one is much more dynamic.
All in all good stuff

thanks, i think i made some visible strides in improvement since i first made that sprite since its the most recent sprite of the ones I've posted so far. 

one thing I'm noticing is a bit of weird "flicker" on the left leg of the bobbing girl. Our left, not hers.
Right where the sock starts.

(also, saitama's missing his cape man! Can't forget the cape dude!)

the one with the red shirt, aye? yeah.. she was my first attempt at this larger style since i formulated it. it was all very experimental at the time. (See, even her arms aren't fully attached.)

and saitama will get his cape soon! i promise!