Alicix: Thanks! I actually WANT the eyes to stand out like that though; kind of a style thing i guess? If you look at the link sprite it's not as noticeable once you put clothes on it. Though I did intend to actually take off that little mascaraish thing on the eye(I thought I did, must not have saved it) and I'll deffinatly take your other critiques into consideration ^_^
GR: I'm actually doing templates for 2 reasons.
1. I'm doing all of the pose templates for the HKCP. As such, I need to make sure my ability to shade skin is top notch and even though doing such small sprites isn't exactly good for practicing sprites as detailed as HKs it's still helping to know exactly where things need to be shaded, how to animate things better(since I sucked SO bad at animating until I started these, this is the biggest reason) and how to draw better lines since mine always seemed to be sort of jagged.
2. Like almost everyone else here, I'm working on a project. Though UNLIKE everyone else here I want mine to stand out and have custom graphics. Which obviously means I'll need a custom template. The Panda template was my first attempt, which I did when I didn't know ANYTHING about template spriting and it obviously failed horribly. Kosmos was my second attempt, which also failed until I revised it; although after the revision it was better I still didn't think it was what I was looking for so once again I started anew. The MK was just a little boredom thing I did so that I could have characters that fit Inquistor's tiles for when I practice mapping with them, which was my first success. Finally I come to this one which I'll be using for the Winter Game Contest once I finish it. So all of these did or do have a purpose, they're just mostly for me. Only reason I post em here is because if someone DID want to use them they'd be able to and so I can get critique.
After I finish this new one I'll be doing only characters and tiles until around January(since apparently the winter contest runs through December too) though so it's not really a huge deal anyways =]
Nonick: It doesn't really work =/ The wood palette's not TOO bad but the leaves are.
The shadow is too dark, the highlights are too light(and saturated x_x) and for some reason it looks like you removed a bit of shading on them O.o
Edit: I forgot about this:
http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/3433/hollyrf2.png[/IMGZOOM]
This is Holly, she's a teddy in a pink puffy coat who will be saving Christmas very soon ^_^
thanks GR! Your hair style is different from what mine's supposed to be(my character's bangs hang in front of his face, yours looks kind brushed over a bit, it doesn't matter though it still helps a lot ^_^