It Just doesn't feel right... (advice requested on colors)

[Dark_linis]

Hi, Seeing as I've forgotten how to be sociable on a net forum I'll get to the point.

For a while now, I've been tinkering with battlers for my game and I finally settled on a few designs and colored them. Unfortunately even after reading quite a few tutorials and applying them, I still feel something is off. These are what I'm talking about

these are the first frame idle poses

I'd be grateful if some one could tell me what went wrong. I just cant really seem to pinpoint it.
Thanks.

 

[Perihelion]

1. More contrast. It looks really flat and washed out right now; put some more dark and light colors in to define the shape more.
2. Less pillow-shading. I highly recommend picking a light source and reshading these with that in mind (upper left works nicely).

 

[Dark_linis]

I see. I'll give that a try and post my results when Im done.

Thanks