Pretty solid for an early foray - there's a lot of detail in this. I suggest you make smaller pieces first if you're a beginner, as you can get away with a lot in a small sprite. In a large piece like this your errors are clearly visible and a lot more refinement is needed to get a nice, polished piece. Study anatomy, observe musculature on a body, see how forms are shaded.

She is shiny because it's wet :P

 also,study on how the scales reflect light.your piece looks like a ceramic sculpture, all shiny througout.

Thanks for your advice! i understand that in a drawing you can use more than one spot of light, but I'll probably didn't make the effect to work so good. :) I'll try to improve that for the next one.

 looks fine for starters, but the lighting's sort of messed up(i.e., the "shine" in the hair is in the left side while the "shine" on the tail is on the right. the arms looked detached from the entire body.