Think shapes more than shades.
Don't challenge yourself on how many shades you can fit in a sprite, that's just silly.
Instead, block out the shapes in single color objects THEN start the shading process.

Daww, shucks. :3


Anyway, listen to Lizard, he is most wise.
Shape > Shade

Thats how I've been doing it aswell.

About a few months ago I had someone PM me wanting a tutorial on how I sprite.. Shape, Colour, Shade, then Details.

Also, if ya want it to be CC style ish, try to use many colors that are similar as the same color, should work.

Yeah, I try to do that-

Take the custom color function in MS Paint, and use the gradients to select between lighter and darker of the currently selected color, and it snaps to in-palette colors.

I make sticks, then blobs, then key shades and outlines (for example patches of colour that really make the shape), then more outlines, then more shading. Then I add on the finishing touches and call it done!

...Then I come back every few minutes for 3 hours to make adjustments, all the while fretting about how bad it is.

my sprite for the BF2142 pistol: i feel that it is lacking something.... maybe it needs to be resized. i dunno. help would be nice. and the pac smg: i thinks its too big. there, better?

p.s. this is the first sprite i have done fully by myself, so please dont be too harsh

Well uh, your shapes are alright, but you need shading and contrast, and all the basics, really. And they're 2x too big.

Here's an edit. It's pretty bad but it might give you an idea of what to do... Another shade would help out a lot, rather than just plain grey.

have you ever played the game?

Shading is still a given. Also your shape needs more of a darker outline to it. Give it some of the fine details if you can, try to make it look nearly exactly like it.

EDIT: Jesus, they don't even have outline...

Yeah there's no space enough... details of sidearms in cortex command have a bonus-rape...

im having a hard time with a FG42 sprite.
soo smallso tiny, hard to get the details right.
even though its slighly too big say 50% , if you take the 20px/1m rule.
included reference.

Edit.
tryed to resprite like luger ,though i think i should go for a darker color on the stock.

First, compare the luger and the FG42, then you make a solid color size chart with the luger from CC as a base.
Then you sprite away and try to make it look like the luger in style.

I think it would look better (more like the image) with the top part of the barrel one pixel longer, but retaining the bottom half's length.

Stop spriting spikes because it shoots 7,92 mm.