The evolution of characters in my game Corona Caelestis from when I first began spriting and coding while living in Japan to my most recent revisions last year.
The characters shown here are the unnamed playble character who is simply called "boss" by his followers, George and Grant.
The main character was initially meant to be similar to the similarly unnamed hero of Faxanadu, but his character design changed overtime.
In the original version of the game, George and Grant were guards instead of treasure hunters, and distinguishable only their hair or lack thereof.
George began with a blocky pompadour, which grew a bit more realistic with time. Grant stayed bald and eventually lost his eyebrows as well. I gave him a bandana in the final cut because you jump on his head during gameplay and it seemed cruel to not give his scalp some covering. | 
I've been drawing since I was a child and doing pixel art since my teens. If you're starting out now, be sure to keep all you old stuff, not matter how embarrassing it is later. It's amazing to look back and see how far you've come. The progression you see here was years of growth, and each sprite was the very best I was capable at the time.
I worked with these characters for such a long period that aspects of their design pop up in my work even today.