Runouw's sprites

[Runouw]

Thanks for the suggestions. The simplified shading is duly noted. I'll get working on that later this week. The strange torso and leg proportions I have are now hard to unsee now that you've pointed it out. 

Before reading your replies, I had finished a test idle animation, right here:
En garde!


My brother is still unsatisfied with the style having such "simple" shading, but I'm still going to try to follow your suggestions for shading. I'll try to post an update later this week.

Edit:
Something like this?