oh yeah, your right. Thats a gradient I forgot to remove after testing some stuff.
I'll post the original size of the picture once I get home.
However, I dont really understand what you mean with "The horizontal lines of the shield are unfortunately alligned with the stepping of the shirt, creating a very jagged appearance"
There's about 100 colors in that little bit of shield alone so it can't really be considered pixelart...and a far cry from being the 8bit image I think you try to convey. Also, there's no real need to use big pixels as there's a zoom feature here. The horizontal lines of the shield are unfortunately alligned with the stepping of the shirt, creating a very jagged appearance. Clean that up and make it 16 colors (or so) and you'll have a pretty nice sprite. Welcome to PJ.
Cool stuff mate!