Color Lines vs. Black Lines

[NeryNight]

Hey guys!
I really want to know your opinion on an art dilemma. I am currently working on the sprites for my GxB game "Love Struck."
Last night I finish coloring Seiya's sprite, but I would like to know what you think about it. I did it in two different ways. The first picture is outline with black and the other is outlines with the respective colors.
Which one do you think looks the best?
I still need to work a little more with it, but I need to decide which one to use as a base. Help me with your comments please!

[Camille]

In general, I prefer colored lineart, but I think the colors you're using for the outlines are a little too light for perfection.

[Aleema]

I'm a weirdo that likes black lines, but more people generally prefer colored lines. Makes it look more like professional art or something? But I agree that if you darken the colors on the lines, the above sprite would be fine. (I dunno, the skin lines seem okay, but the hair, for instance, jumps out as not dark enough).

[NeryNight]

Thank you for the tips. It really helped!
I'll go back to work on it.

[Fawn]

Colored lines usually look the most natural and can help make the picture look more 3D, But, make sure they're not too light. Yours should be a little darker for better line emphasis. Also, it's best not to color the lines before shading- You should make sure the fit the shading colors too, not just the fill colors

[0ion9]

Just brought these up in GIMP and fooled around. IMO this looks most professional:
The 'colored' image with 33% opacity atop the 'black' image

(Incidentally, my layer opacity slider has left the GIMP room. Bizarre. (So I had to use a hack with layer masks to get that 33% opacity.))

Shading the lines themselves according to their relation to the lightsource also helps greatly with making the image pop. It doesn't need a lot of shades -- 2, 3? to make a big difference in the readability of the image.

[lordcloudx]

Hmm... a little suggestion (and please try to respect this, fellow artists. No need to attempt to demean my suggestion in order to prove that yours is the most correct... ahem... moving on)

Try going with the black outlines and then adding in at least a 1 pixel outline to the outer edges of the sprite to make it stand out a bit more? The downside of course is that it will instead serve to make it look more cartoony and cel-shaded, but the sprite itself might mesh better aesthetically with the background that way.

[15385bic]

i have that same dilemma sometimes - i still cant decide which is better but black lines are just plain easier so i often stick to that due to sheer lazyness XD