Dark Knight + Desert Knight

[zoekmath]

I've tried to do a dark knight, what do you think about it? Please, help me with the shading, it's what I want to improve.
About the anatomy, I did it pretty fast, I know the legs should be longer and the right arm maybe shorter.

Edit: Added a desert knight.

Edit: Smoothed the dark knight.

[Curly]

It's too noisy and overdetailed. A cleaner look would make it more readable.
I made a quick edit:

[zoekmath]

It's too noisy and overdetailed. A cleaner look would make it more readable.
I made a quick edit:

Thanks. About the shading, is there a way to improve it?
I think that I should do it not as much smooth as you did, but a little more.

[Curly]

Before shading you should have a pose, body parts, clothing, etc that are readable. There are many details in your sprite that had a hard time guessing what they were. I suggest you to paint every part in its base color and making things cleaner before shading.

[zoekmath]

Before shading you should have a pose, body parts, clothing, etc that are readable. There are many details in your sprite that had a hard time guessing what they were. I suggest you to paint every part in its base color and making things cleaner before shading.

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind for next drawings. I've uploaded a new desert knight that I hope looks cleaner.

[Curly]

It's less noisy
The white cloth looks a bit messy tho
The chest needs more contrast. Make the darkest shade a bit darker.
Also the axe looks too tiny for such a big guy

[drain.]

Nice designs!

The biggest problem I am currently seeing is that you're trying to cram in too much details in such a confined place, this results in unnecessary noise and orphaned pixels.

http://androidarts.com/pixtut/pixelart.htm

^ This article has a section on noise and too much details, and other concepts that might aid you even more.

[zoekmath]

Thank you so much. That was so helpful.
Basically I tried to put too much shading details and that made it too noisy xD
I'll try to fix it, let's see how it goes