well what i did was just made the template really big, then had outlined a drawing of her hair and clothes with the pen tool using black, then filled it in semi transparent to keep the shading of the body to try to make it look like its also the shading of the clothes and hair.
at first i just tried to do the 'ol fashioned pixel by pixel method... starting with the hair it was very confusing, i couldnt get it right it lookd all slopy the pixels did... and it was agrovating me that i couldnt make it right... I'm, not pixel artist nor will i probably ever be and one reason is i dont shade well... well atleast not as well as you guys.
after all my life of drawing i still cant get the shading right. ive followed tutorials and ive been to art class and after all this my shading is still far from perfect. or even decent.... instead of siting here making myself mad at a sprite i coudlnt make look right i tried to make it look at detailed as possible. i know you guys want the shading and details to be detailed. so i did the best i could within enjoyable range... these sprites take forever to make,... its very hard for me to play a game for 5 hours let alone make a sprite for 5 hours. or more...
anyway thanks for replying... i didnt have to make the additions semi transparent i just thought it would look better that way and it probably does...-.- or else it would just look like anime shading. you'd think thats too simple. even probably no matter how much i blend it.