Well, first, thankyou and second, no, never met haha. I completely agree on the portrait and I now realise that old people probably aren't the best place to start portraits, what with all the wrinkles and such.

Yeah, I see the clearer light source thing and it has always been a problem of mine, especially with little accents like this.

Yeah, I wasn't too sure what texture I was going for either, I was just seeing what I could do. But thankyou, I'll do that next time.

A very helpful critique, thankyou and I'll be sure to keep it in mind on future projects.

Well.... in an attempt to be slightly more tactful than the last guy (I assume you're close friends), let me start by saying that I love the idea, which is very manly indeed. The portrait is pretty good, although I think the eyes need a bit of work. Maybe the ear should be a few pixels lower too.

I do think that the leaves would benefit from a more clear light source, and better shading. You might want to abandon the dark outline, so you can better display the shape and shades on the leaves.

Also, I'm not sure which texture you wanted to have on the circle around the portrait, and the crest (?) below. But unless you have a very identifiable texture, I would just go with a smooth surface.

Hope this helps

 The whole thing looks way too clumsy and random, you need to control your pixels, this looks very cluttered. The dithering is an eyesore aswel, and it makes the numbers hard to see.