C&C for Sprites: Practice, possible game. Need help

[Bearded_Beast]

I suggest stopping using selout in the whole pieces. It's too distracting and ugly, and the shading is all over the place.

I'm not sure how the selout is distracting or what to do to eliminate that problem. Should I just go with a solid outline? Not use an outline at all? Change the near-black to something lighter?

I went with near-black so the darkest parts would seem darker. I am aiming for darker shadows, stronger contrast. Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way?

As for shading, I'm generally using a source that is over, yet between us and the character.

I'm going to edit the origin post to give a better idea of what I'm aiming for. Maybe that will help.