Want advice on sprite

[Gouge]

Here's a sprite I'm working on. What needs improvement and what's good to leave as is?
Also could use some animation ideas.

[taptap]

The right arm is huge and looks like only loosely attached to the body. The blob on the right hip is unreadable (a skull?), if you get it out of the way you could put the arm in a more comfortable position.

[Gouge]

Ok. I moved the arm a little and shifted over the waist skull. I like the skull so I'm not planning to remove it.
Does the change to the arm help?
Also added an ear and changed some coloring on the helmet.

[pe_em]

If I were this unit I'd rather hold my weapon upwards. It looks more natural.

[Gouge]

Ok. Changed the position of the weapon. I've got 3 positions. Are any of these better?

[SFault]

I don't like the new ones. The original weapon position is better. It gives a feeling of a savage with a heavy weapon.

There are two things sticking out of his back. Don't know what they (bow, throwing spear?) are but having bit of outlines might help. The shield looks too much of human soldier shield. I would change the metal parts into more bronze like, bone like or maybe even having full wooden shield to match it more with the rest of the unit.

All and all, great unit with good pixeling

[Gouge]

Those spikes are bones coming off the shoulder pads. Also I agree about the shield. I planned to add feathers or bones to the upgraded units but I could make some changes to the current version. Gold might be the right way to go instead if the grey.

[Elvish_King]

I think his head should be situated a bit more to the left, it looks unnatural as it is now. But rest of the unit is really good, keep it up!

[Gouge]

Ok. Changed some coloring on the shield, arms, and legs to match the helmet. Outlined the shoulder spikes. Reverted arm to the lower position. Increased the hood length over the chest. Might need to darken the arm and leg bands or the skin. I think its pretty close to being done though.

[Gouge]

Also here's a more ornate version. Possibly an upgraded unit

[Midnight_Carnival]

I like the new shield, but not so much the feather on the head. It just seems a bit much.
Without detracting from what others have to say I find your sprite generally good and look forward to seeing more.
If you were submitting this as part of mainline Wesnoth, I'm sure there would be a lot 'wrong' with it, but for a umc or your own era I think it looks great! The arm has come on well. A tip for franking: sometimes you need to erase or colour over the join entierly and redraw it - this works better if it is a small area and will also help you learns about shading (which you don't seem to need to).
Make more.

[Gouge]

I kinda like the feather. Also what would be the requirements for mainline?
And here's what i think I'd use for the 3rd level of advancement. It has two head feathers.

[Midnight_Carnival]

actually, adding a second feather improves matters in my opinion.

Requirements for mainline check the relevant post <maybe a well meaning mod will edit my post and add the link for me >

But mainly:
they have to want your sprites - that means that they need them, there are many mainline units without animations and some of the sprites used to have female versions which they now don't, there is a lot of work they need done. It's not impossible that they'd change the way the whole game was going becasue you drew such an awsome sprite but I wouldn't count on it just yet

Mainline has a certain standard and a certain style which has become more and more pronounced recently - personally I'm divided as to whether that's a good thing because while I love playing a Wesnoth which looks great, I also sometimes like to see the 'fingerprints' of contributors, but that's just my personal opinion. If you want your sprites to be mainline they'll probably have to look a lot like other mainline sprites.

Then there is the issue of people wanting consistency, so if you draw one really brilliant sprite for mainline, minus animations, and then bugger off, nobody will like you becasue they'll have to draw all the others for you, for this reason the people who contribute to mainline art will either have been there since the begining or they will be people who've put a lot of work into popular user-made campains and eras.

Hence me teling you before that your best bet is to keep making more great sprites.

Oh, PS: I think your sprites are great and a lot better than mine. I woudn't want to do mainline sprites myself, not only becuase I don't think I'm good enough, but because I think doing my own is a lot more fun. If you would rather make mainline sprites, keep working at it, remember it's not just quality they're looking at.