Real nice work.   Kind of reminds me of Grandpa from The Munsters.  Not an exact match but there's just something about it that makes me think of him.

I love it! Great use of colors.

*less seriously, because he has a perv-ish twinkle to his eye :p

I would not have ever noticed any of these things and I still do have trouble noticing them! The only thing that seems to be easily noticeable now that you mentioned it is probably the jacket and hair. I for one really love the nose (perhaps the only thing that looks a bit off after taking a closer look at it is the purple shades that meet up with the lighter pink/purple). I don't see what you mean by it being scrunched up though.

Of course it isn't perfect, I don't think anyone on PJ has made a perfect piece (I still need to think about what it takes to make a perfect piece or even if it's possible) but this is still lovely in it's own right.

Perhaps I should spend a bit more time picking over pieces! Or maybe it's just a matter of experience.

I like how yours is in many respects an opposite to mine! Great work on the highlight in the face!

Well, perhaps some of those 'imperfections' lead to a better piece, for instance the jacket being a sketch - undetailed and blending into the background lets the attention stay where it should be, the face, which is very well rendered. Lots to look at there already.

I do agree about the ear and hair though, wish the hair was slightly more noticeable (color-wise) because I really like what you did with it.

To me, not really. Perfection is such a subjective definition and to be honest, it's those flaws that made the piece unique in my eyes. 

Far from realism, perhaps. But it has it's own style. 

Oh don't be silly, lots could be improved.  The rendering is inconsistent, being sculpted and soft in some areas, flat relief-work in others.  the nose is shaded quite differentfly from the rest.  The entire thing looks like it's been skewed, pinched and pulled slightly from the top-right and bottom-left.  the shadows around the hairline are unexplained and the transition from white to shadowed curls is abrupt.  There in particular the texture of the hair gets lost -- more noisy than wiry.  the jacket is a throwaway, a sketch of what could have been drawn there.  The ear is mannerist and not in a particularly attractive way.

I'm happy with this piece.  It accomplished in a few hours what I believe was the point of the challenge, as well as meeting my personal goals.  I could not make significant improvements without investing a significant amount of addtional time, which I think would begin to defeat the point.

But that doesn't mean there' isn't always room for improvement.  Art won't be perfect until it is sublime, and we're a long way off from that yet.

Yikes this is good. I would love to offer an opinion on what I think could be changed but I don't see anything :P