Mono sprites

[YinYin]

little edit on contrast.
I still want to perfect 4th one.

Much better. Really gives it the oomph that only 3 had.
Hair pattern of the first is still best as it suggests layered depth, while this one is fanned out like a flat sunflower.

how about these ?

Everything above belly muscles looks best on the first.
Everything below looks best on the last.
Again it's contrast and light distribution that decides it for me.
The respective other half of the two and the ones in between are fine too, but have too little contrast or weird light distribution in some places (most notable the front hair, armpit, belly muscles and lower pants of the standing leg).

edit: I guess the different shadings only really become visible on the full scale for this one. Too much seems to get lost on downscaling. Are you ever testing different interpolation methods?