Mono sprites

[YinYin]

1st sprite is more like lf2 style. Simple
2nd. is how shading looks in Guilty Gear game.
3rd. One of my shadings.
4th. My current style.

Gotta agree: Hair 1 on the 3rd would be best.
2nd and 4th aren't sharp enough, too blurry/soft, many details from the original resolution get lost and all the gradients you get in return don't help to accentuate the 3D shape of the character.

For better comparison of the shadings themselves it would've been better to have the exact same lightning and details on each rather than different light on the hair and different creases on the pants etc.
The hair on 1 really is only the best because of the well balanced light shapes on the dark ground - the others just have too much or too few light area compared to it (and the shapes aren't as good).
3 is the best on the fine details that are still retained at this scale.
4 looks especially bad because you chose a different colour contrast on the pants.
None of these aspects seem to be related to the 4 different shading styles.
edit: I can see where these differences came from though - this still is a result I guess.