Spriting?

[Superblue]

I used to work on sprites when I was younger, but always with 16bit(For a game), Now that I'm trying higher quality sprites, I'm finding it much more difficult.  I think I just don't have artistic talent, but I was wondering if there were any actual tutorials on spriting for mugen in general.  I looked on youtube, but the only one I found didn't actually explain anything, just showed himself spriting with speed enhancements.
I probably haven't looked very hard, but my main issue is figure drawing.  I feel like if I had base sprites to work with I may be able to do better.
So far I've got an edit of Cyclops from MvC2 that I was working on, but I want to be able to create cool poses like others.  Any tips?

PS: My first edit job, WIP(link)
 

[L@nce Uppercut]

Looking at your first sprite (if that is it as your avatar) I can say that you're being too hard on yourself. Starting a new style or avenue is never going to be easy nor should it be. The best thing I can suggest is gather all the resources you can and make whatever you feel you can make first to get your skills up. Once you're comfortable spriting in this new style then you can tackle more complex things.

Sadly there is no shortcut to being good. All you can do is practice, but like I said I think you're heading in the right direction. After all the vast majority of us started with a Cyclops based sprite edit.

[Superblue]

The other problem I'm having is making animations from singular poses.  With things like the S-Shield on his chest, it's a bit harder to make a breathing animation(Though that's not entirely what I want from his standing pose).  I guess I'm just hoping there's some kind of basic guide on how to make certain poses and animations work.

[Cyanide]

Nope. Practice, then practice some more. After you've practiced a bit you might need to do some practice followed by practicing. Once you have practiced practicing for a long time you'll be ready to REALLY start practicing. Practice when you're not practicing as well.

In spriting what works for one person doesn't work for every one. I will say that many people who do full sprites will often do a skeleton animation first and fill in detail over that rather than modifying an existing sprite. Breathing etc, film yourself doing it, then attempt to replicate in sprite form. Moving pixels never looks very good, re-draw/reshade things rather than just adding a pixel line.