Wow looks good!
Personally I like the last one best. You mentioned that the soul fused with the flame to posess the armor and I agree that the greenish one is looking more soullike so it might be better fit for the story you are telling.
The last one is also my favourite but I'm a bit relunctant to proceed with it because I fear the colour goes a bit off-topic. But thank you.
9 days later
A cleaner color version of the character. Not in any pose or anything. Just trying to paint it a bit nicer and will update once all the color has been polished.
Work has been hard and the will to draw anything is very low but I will try to submit a finished work for the contest.
Edit: I decided to shorten the clothpiece. The first version felt too much on the character.
The clothing looks very fiery too, have you thought of incorporating more of the fire as the actual clothing or just going with the head and shoulders? I hope you learn a lot from this experience and really enjoy it!
My idea is to paint the tips in the cloth in a more yellowish tone, in a transition from cloth into actual flame or flame like clothing. I'm still undecided though, but by the time I finish this piece I hope to have made up my mind. And thank you, I am enjoying the experience although I'm producing at a very slow pace.
Hey hey ! Cool project !
I personally have a big preference for your greenish colour set but the red work as well !
Oh thank you. I also have a preference for the green one but i was afraid to use it. I think it might be a bit off the flame theme by being green rather than red.
I liked the green one too. Fire is fire, if you paint it well enough I doubt people would confuse it for anything else. Red and green go well together too, so you can add warm colours to the clothing anyway.
Yep I'm 100% with moirae !
And do things in an unexpected way is always cool !
Fire is fire
Red and green only remind me of those tacky christmas decorations. I couldn't mix those two in my project because I'm 100% sure I would end up hating hit. I'm now considering a lot changing it to the green one. The feedback I got here, plus feedback at home, plus my own taste, make me think it's a mistake to go against what I like best in favour of red fire. Dunno if I can paint it well enough though. But without trying I'll never know.
I'm seriously thinking swaping the palette to the green one based on feedback plus my own tastes. It's the one I like best after all. Hope I can do it right though. Thanks for your feedback 
As long as it looks like fire it doesn't have to be orange lmao either way great work, it's coming along nicely! The pose is dynamic too, keep it up
Here are the final versions of that sketch I made. The coloured one was to test the green palette. Now that I made it with that one, I'm not sure I want to use it anymore. It may be that I grew accustomed to the red one. Time to move on to the final project since the deadline is coming in fast and I'm slow as hell.
The castle top pauldrons look neat. If you're using photoshop, you can slap some gradient maps on top of your layers to mess around with color. Sometimes I do this after I get some values in but it's an anytime, non destructive thing.
I am glad you went with the green fire in the end, it's not a big change but it does dramatically alter the feel in a good way, bit more unique
This is a quick sketch I made for the final work. I have mixed feelings about it. Will try some others to see if they appeal me a little more.
