Wyrdysm Games

It sucks and needs improvement, but I don't shiny very well. It's my attempt at redoing my old Tempest fighter. You can criticize it, rip it to Hell, butcher it, remake it, I don't mind.

Well the shading is well done and the shape lines are clean. It just feels a bit spartan that's all.

'Spartan' and 'flat' come to my mind. I love the design, I just can't make it pop like Kaelis could.

I'm about the farthest thing from an artist, but I think part of the problem is that the shading is too subtle and the internal lines too soft (if that's the right term). They're not dark enough and they don't subdivide things as much as kae's sections did.
Also, the light areas aren't light enough to fit in with the style.
Overall, the whole thing comes off, like you said, as flat and as a completely different style from shiny sprites.
It's a cool design and it still looks good as is, it just doesn't fit with shinies. I think it'd look pretty awesome in proper shiny style though.

My attempt at sprucing it up:

Its still not 'shiny' as such.

Is that a Joke? Image not available.

Woops. Sorry, I changed the image size without updating the code. I'll have to do it tomorrow, I need sleep.

Edit: here tis: