Firstly, i believe this pixel art can't be accepted since you used automated brushes and blur effetcs at the background, and this creates a lot of colors at your drawing, and pixel art requires color management. The dagger itsel has a nice shade, but i see a lot of jaggies on the blade. Creating a new background and fixing the jaggies (this tutorial may help you: https://opengameart.org/content/chapter-2-lines-and-curves) will certainly improve this pixel art a lot :)
you are right, I use several brushes to make that background, I don't use special techniques, I just overwrite a few brushes into one.
Nicely done. What was your technique for the background disk? It just seems to have a different style to it and a much large pallet spread than the dagger itself so I imagine some manner of brush was used. Not that that's an issue I'm just curious.
thanks for the advice, this is very helpful