very nice !

Congratulations on first place, it was well deserved.

Cute character, i thought it was Valkyrie.

 awesome animation

Very nice animation. I agree with dawnbringer.

Thanks for all the awesome feedback everybody! And DawnBringer, good points and good edit, thank you! I'll get it all fixed up after the voting ends!

Awesome.

Reeeeeally awesome.

 its really lovely :)

I'm going to second the really cool blocking animation

Oops, I almost didn't see it in the voting thread! Voted!

my mind has been blown to shreds. freaking amazing.

Since you posted the image I'll continue the halo issue here instead of the forum.

It's better but still not good. There's still some banding and it's not quite circular. And It's often an important aspect of a sprite to make it work with different backgrounds, meaning that you will have to be very restrictive and selective with outer AA (something I've been practicing & exploring myself recently). Typically, any sprite that works well with all backgrounds often become a better looking sprite in general.

Here's an edit to demonstrate this: (your original in the left column)

 мой голос!

 I agree with buddy90 for the throwing animation, it lacks of strenght and dynamism. But the whole sprite and animation are great ! :D

This blocking animation is really really cute :)

Looks adorable. I still think the throwing animation could be faster, but it's fine to leave it alone. I really love the shield.

Good to see you got her finished - turned out great Zeratanus!

It was a favorite ever since you first posted it in the challenge thread.

Wow! I'll vote for you!

 My favorite entry. You definitely have my vote! So much well done animation,  and an awesome character design.

A great piece! Innovative and smooth animation. I really like it.