[C+C] Roman Soldier

[stuart6854]

Hello. I would like to get some feedback on my roman soldier below. I have also upload a duplicate image with my areas that i am not quite sure i like. I have yet to do anti-aliasing(except a bit on sword-blade) as i want to perfect the basic shape first. This is going to be the base for my games main character and so will be used to created a animation sprite-sheet. Any feedback appreciated

[zoekmath]

Don't ever use gradients on pixel art. Shade it with dithering instead.
You should add shadings to the whole image, not only the sword.
Don't use that many square shapes. They don't look like that on real life. If it's your stile though, you could keep it. But improve it.
The sword handle is just strange. How can the bottom of it just look bigger than the whole hand?
Hope this helps.

[stuart6854]

What about now? I have yet to mess around with the helmet(except gold line) and his face. I tried adding dithering to the sword as well as on some of his tunic/red clothing. Tried to round of some of his features (eg. feet, hands, bottom of sword handle). I also made the bottom of sword handle smaller. How does it look now? Have i done the dithering right?

[Curly]

The sprite is too big.
His left arm is way shorter than the right one, and you don't need to dither (I wouldn't recommend dithering to anyone unless you are pro and know exactly what you're doing.)
Also you need to set a lightsource in order to shade properly.

I shrank it to 25% of the original size and it doesn't look too different from the original. It's a good size for the style your sprite has.
I made an edit at 50% so you can see that you don't need a canvas that big. It's only making the work harder and slower.