Ok back, sorry for derailing a bit here :^)
@Med: gggfhfdh's edit shows another direction you could take it which is pretty fun, props for that.
The new stuff is great, much more dynamic though her face is still reading very "bored". For the pose; if she's going to fight unarmed, check out some martial arts or boxing vids for stance/posture ref. The new stuff is much more interesting but looks like her body is twisted a bit much for her back arm to be very useful in attacking or defending.
@Catguy: firstly, wow, the salt is real huh? Feel free to remind me what I did to hurt your feelings.
Secondly, you seem to have missed that I was editing/addressing the original, not the edit he made. Here it is for reference.
Addressing the tldr:
"What you need to do is make her arms twice the length of her body, pillowshade all her clothes, and change her hairstyle and facial structure arbitrarily to one in an entirely different style"
I kept the arms the same length as in the original. The pillow shading on the shoulder might be an issue. Re: arbitrary changes in style - sort of like a different artist was giving pointers in his own design language for illustration, rather than integrating exactly with the given world, huh? As I said the only face changes I made were removing eye makeup and pulling the mouth back a bit; the eyebrows are hardly a structural change.
Addressing the points 1 by 1:
a- You have to have a dorky, cut at the farm bob in order to be a strong woman now? holy shit. That is heartbreakingly regressive (and ugly) + It's an anime hairstyle anyway, graphic design > weight and structure. On the face: lack of shading in her eye and 1px eyeshadow have completely changed the intent of the character and look blah. We can go with the more plausible anatomy and less crosseyed look while retaining the original design choices.
I have no idea where you got the assertion that you "have to" have a bob to be a strong woman, just asserted that that hairstyle is associated with the traits I listed (which I believe it is).
gggfhfdh's edits pull the hair in a nice interesting directoin, and that's fine. I simply didn't like the original hair, so I removed it.
Re: the makeup removal - stylistic choice on my part, deal with it.
Re: the eye shading - it's not there in the version I edited.
b- the gloves are her definining characteristic, put them back. On gloves: I think your edit may actually have more skin showing than the original. Why are her arms bare, save for fingerless gloves?
Again, I didn't edit the one you linked, I edited the original. I kept the gloves
from that version.
I added a tiny bit of length to the shorts and that's about it, I mentioned the thigh window as a reference to the second version because I felt it was an example of inappropriate wardrobe choices. Absolute amount of skin showing is also reasonably irrelevant when you compare amount of thigh to amount of arm, especially with the arms this large stylistically.
c- Geti what is with those highlights are you insane. On color: I admire how much you re-used that one brown tone from skin shadowing, to clothing shading, but it's loaded up a bit too heavy I think -- presents weird clustering issues with the far arm. nuked. Still on color: why is her shirt shading just another near black? We dont need two different blacks.
Because I edited the original using the colours from there. They were all there. In the one I edited. Which highlights are you talking about re: insanity? none of it looks particularly mental to me.
d- a fucking sword? we have to add a giant sword to show intent? "This is swordgirl, she sword". Yuck. Subtlety is grace.
Oh sorry, I must be living in bizarro world where edged weapons somewhere between a dagger and a short sword aren't considered giant, and where giving fighting characters something to fight with helps with visually identifying their purpose and introducing some variation into their stances and silhouette. Silly me.
This is game art, subtlety is obfuscation.
Seriously though, what'd I do? I don't remembering spitting in your drink.
Either way I've got something in my pocket for you :^)