So I started making a Mega Man-inspired platformer and got really caught up in attempting to do the pixel art for the main character, Gia...

Not really having any experience with pixel art (I made some pretty bullets for a now abandoned bullet hell game once), I decided to see if I could learn from existing works.

For this particular sprite, I used Lenneth's sprite from Valkyrie Profile as a guide for making Gia's own shape/silhouette.

The first one is the default colour scheme and the rest are just recolours I played around with (trying to learn how to pick colours and such). The recolours aren't actually final till I get around to designing the bosses you're supposed to beat to get new abilities.

That last row has the Gear weapon itself and Gia holding it. In the game, the Gear's constantly spinning, and you chuck it around to kill stuff. =)