thats not bad for your first go, but the colours seem a little flat. You need some shadows and highlights, heres what i do.

I have the original colour, say we are doing the red pants, i then change the colour to be a light pink. Then i change the opacity of the brush im using to around 10% (and its one pixel in size) then i slowly go over the areas i believe should be highlighted, and the areas that should be shadowed. (i use a dark red/black colour) The way it works is that you can have a nice smooth highlight as in order to get it bright you have to build the brush strokes up.
EDIT - heres me quickly messing with your sprite (very quick) hope you dont mind

that looks way better than mine...thanks
what program did you use for the effects by the way?

i use photoshop, but i assume it can be done in paint shop pro, and all the tools are in paint to do it correctly (Except its probably a much lengthier process in paint)

what program do you use?

Meh, It's okay.
A different BG would make the fatality look better. It sorta blends in the way that's confusing... and some gut's would be nice too.

can you give me a quick tutorial on making my sprite edits better using photoshop please?

Pretty good.Ermacs look in not bad


BTW why is everybody killing Reptile in fakes?

Reptiles got the easiest dead sprites found on the ware house

is this better?