Critique on coloring of Sprites

[Ginger]

So I finally got around to start roughly working on sprites for the game I working on. I realized though that I wasn't sure on what type of coloring fit best. Since I would really love some other opinions besides my own, I decided to ask you lovely and helpful people of LS on your opinions and if you have any ideas or suggestions on how I could improve the character sprites!

Here's a random character of mine with two different variations~!

This one has more extensive coloring.

This one has some highlights on the hair, the skin is shaded more, and the linearts brown instead of black.

This one is a bit simpler.

The skin isn't shaded as heavily, no highlights in the hair, and the lineart is black.

Those may not seem like very big differences, but if I could have opinions and suggestions on how to make them look better that would be great~! And if there are certain things you like, and certain things you definitely think should go, please tell me! Thank you!

[AshenhartKrie]

It looks good, I love the shading on the hair (note that I myself suck at shading). The head looks a bit small and the legs are a bit skinny, but thats very hard to notice. Good job ^_^

[wordlesswriter]

I do like the one with more complex shading/highlights- I can't really put my finger on why, exactly, but I do.
But honestly, I feel like the second one would do just as fine if you changed the line art to brown as well.
It would definitely depend on the environment she's in. If she's outdoors where there is a strong light source to cast shadows like that, go with the first. But if she's in an underwater colony where they get very little natural light, I'd go with the second.

One other thing I can say- and this is sort of more of a style thing than coloring, I guess- is that her lower abdominal line is really prominent. For me personally, it weirds me out and looks like she's got her shorts exposing her her lady parts.
But that's my opinion, and is in no means important.

[Victoria Jennings]

One other thing I can say- and this is sort of more of a style thing than coloring, I guess- is that her lower abdominal line is really prominent. For me personally, it weirds me out and looks like she's got her shorts exposing her her lady parts.
But that's my opinion, and is in no means important.

Apparently, that's a popular thing.

[Aedin]

I think both are beautiful. However, I like the hair coloured in the first one, but the skin in the second.
Like I said, both are beautiful and either will suffice. I agree with what Wordless says. It does depend a lot on the world around her.

[Ginger]

Thank you everyone for your opinions and ideas and suggestions! Wordless, you were right about the shorts. I tried to make them a little bit longer per say, so I hope that's a bit better. And I did want her lower abdomen to be fairly prominent, but I tried to soften it up a little bit. She's suppose to be a bit RPG-ish, so with perhaps accented muscles. I lightened the opacity of the the heavier shading layers, so it's pretty light but still there.

And Victoria? I love Shiki so much.

Also Aedin and Victoria, I realized that I hadn't really though about how skin shading should change depending on the world around the character, so thank you both so much!

Here's an altered version combining a bit of both~

So what do you think?

[Victoria Jennings]

And Victoria? I love Shiki so much.

Hehe, I like her too. <3

Also Aedin and Victoria

You mean Aedin and wordlesswriter? I didn't really say anything useful.

[FatUnicornGames]

The shorts look MUCH better now. ;D

[ghostbunnies]

The light color of her eyes doesn't work for me - everything else seems fine,
but the bottom part of her eyes are kind of blending into her skin.

[CosmicKitty]

maybe I'm crazy.... but it doesn't seem like she has a light source, her legs are lit from the bottom left, some upper right, some upper left. Add light source shading with the cast shades and she'll look less flat.

Picture's worth a thousand words, so here's a shading reference (not by me)
http://pralinkova-princezna.deviantart. ... -102564332