You got it, my friend!  That's why I mentioned the brush type and compression.  Both are things I've done and gone crazy over.  Both trying to figure out what happened and then trying to correct it.  Color consolidation gets ridiculous sometimes with the transition of the program I use on my tablet transferring to the computer.  If you don't get a handle on it quickly you'll end up spending twice as long on a piece.  That's valuable time you could be using to create more amazing work!  

Yes, i was cheking the individual colors and noticed the color count is too high. I really don't recall using too many colors. It would be a nightmare trying to animate the sprite with the current color count. I'll try to consolidate my palette as you suggest. 

Thank you for the advice, DexRunner!

You might check your image specs HERE.  136 colors for a 95x95 canvas is a lot of colors.  It appears that a soft brush with less than 100% transparency might have been used.  If that's not the case then you might check the output image compression of the program you're using to pull with.  They might not be set up right.  If it is the brush, it would be much better to go back and consolidate your colour palette and reign in all the hues that are so close in contrast to one another. It's good practice to keep your colors simple because it shows concentration and accuracy of pixel placement. To that end I should definitely mention that you did a fantastic job of portraying the lighting from the lantern.  Lighting and form are the staples of Pixel art.  Keep up the great work and hopefully those tips help.  Keep going and you'll only keep improving in your art.