Oh no why did you remove it?
Also I'm sure I had commented on the latest improvements, dunno what happened to it :S
I am not a good advisor and my opinion can be wrong, but your background "shouts" too much. I mean it must be darker. Although you should look for references for everything, even for the trees!
Just made whatever changes I could. I've tried texturing the face a bit this time too because I really felt like it could use some depth.
Also, I just realized those hands are too small. :| But alas, it's too late to fix that. Oh well.
It's actually very hard to pixel light gradients on large flattish areas like cartoonish faces (another reason this piece is too large). I don't know how to do it right. Maybe picking the next grey as the main face color and the green for highlights would have worked better. Or else sticking to a cartoon-like 'cell shading'.
Also I should have mentioned that what you did on most of your Mermaid man is what I mean by good refining/finishing. Of course scaly skin helps too ;)
Thanks :)
I gotta admit though, I was a bit iffy about the dithered highlights at the start, but the color seemed too contrasting and the face would've looked flat without lighting so I felt like I had no choice. But I guess I'll experiment with shading instead as that isn't too contrasting.
I should move him down a bit: yes.
Unfinishedness: it's about refining, making nice clusters, nice AA, nice dithering (or not), and generally taking lots of time to love and cherish each and every single pixel =D
For instance, the bright dithering on G's face looks noisy, esp. the single pixels.
Thanks for the critique. I'm not sure what you mean by "Papa Smurf might be lower on that patch of ground", though I guess that means I should move him down a bit.
Not sure how to fix the "unfinishedness", as I was sure I was finished. Any tips on that (without resizing the canvas)?
I'll try to fix up whatever I can, even though this piece feels like genuine nightmare fuel at the moment for some reason. I need to calm the hell down 
The palette mood calls for a black smurf. GNAP!
Composition of the lower right corner is a bit messy: it took me some time to see Gargamel's left hand & arm, Papa smurf might be lower on that patch of ground, the foreground plant should be moved leftward.
Somewhat agree with unfinishedness, mostly because you made it too big - again! XD
I like the fg shadows, they fit the atmosphere well, wish there was some of that around Gargamal too.
She's gray because she's in the upper half that uses the greens and reds/maroons, so I couldn't make her blue and I didn't want her looking green either, so gray was the next best thing I had.
I've had a bit of an issue doing Papa Smurf's pose (and especially his clenched fist) so I had to find a reference of him running and this was the best one I could find (though I switched his legs around).
But I'm glad you like it 
Papa Smurf's pose needs more work but other than that this is pretty nice.
I don't see why Smurfette is dark gray though.
I love Smurfs. It is one of my favorite cartoon series from my childhood. So it is awesome to see some Smurf themed pixel art here.
That's what happens when I go too far out of my comfort zone 
That being said, I still can't believe I actually did this. To be honest, this is by far the most disturbing thing I've drawn (to me at least) and it was actually quite hard to do it given the fact this is one of the things that lies in the darkest corners of my psyche.
Like a mouse getting crunched by a large cat. Alive and still kicking in the mouth. 
Also, Attack on Titan Smurf style. xD
Oh man! Papa Smurf and Gargamel.. perfect characters for that palette 
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What happend?, seems unfinished, no title, desc. nothing. 
I liked the way you put the characters.
Eh, I've reconsidered my piece not long before the challenge ended. I did make some changes according to your suggestions, but now I no longer feel like wanting to have a piece like this in my gallery until I have a better grasp at art :( In other words, I now personally regret making this and I wish I picked another, better idea to work with.
Really sorry.