Spark's Sprites

[Gors]

I'm sorry for taking long, but I'm here with the sprite. I'll be listing general tips so read them if you are interested.



I hope my workpace is self-explanative; basically I make a copy of the sprite for every important step (sketch, outlining, fine outlining, colors, shading) so when I mess up, I have a 'backup' sprite to return on.
My first step was to set her height via heads. I chose a height similar to your sprite, and scribbled a pose for Kiki. Posing is important and if the sprite doesn't look convincing from this point already, you should redo it until it looks nice. Posing is a way of character communication so brush up on your anatomy and go for it
After the sketch, I laid out blue lines to outline the volume of her body and head. The broom is in another color because it's a different object and behind the character. This avoids confusion when cleaning up. Also Kiki is naked yet; I usually draw the characters naked first to clothe them later. This way I'm sure the clothes wrap the body perfectly, without perspective issues or other weird errors.
After a few adjusts, I made the definitive outline in black. I consider this the last step to fix the anatomy and posing. From now on, the outline won't change as much and will be ready to receive colors. The additional details such as clothing, bow and hair volume were given in those steps as well. Notice that the sprite doesn't have any jaggies, and is smoothest as possible in black and white. This easens readability and coloring.
The first colors are assigned on the areas. I chose light colors for her because it's a lighthearted sprite. Colors also evoke emotions so pay attention.
The shading was placed according to the imaginary lightsource, set on the top-right corner. The different shades were picked with a good amount of contrast and hueshift (though I'm kinda rusty at this). You'll also notice that inside outlines were done with a lighter color than the outside lines, and there is antialiasing on her face to add details that are smaller than a pixel (her nose, for example, looks like a light dot from far away, even if it's actually drawn with black.

Of course, I made this without animating in mind so you can remove or simplify those steps to your liking. My sprite isn't perfect either but I think it's worth a look. (Also it was a good spriting exercise for me ) Sprite, like any type of art, is all about practicing, and if you want to get better at it, I'll do my best at teaching stuff!

Bonus: animated gif of the steps



PS: I forgot to give her cheek blushes... oh well..Fixed.