rabidbaboy: you're right, it works better without the cyan outline. (so the outline is gone now)
Scruffs: might've been scribbled initially, but I've spent like 6 hours on this if I recall correctly. I've improved significantly since then as evidenced by my recent submission 'Captain'
I still struggle with human faces though, as you can see in the commentary there.

It don't click for me.
And did you really have to add the light blue outlines?X_X

doesnt look finished.  tighten your pixels up, it's very harsh right now, and kinda scribbled.  look's half assed to me, give it another go. =)

update (the colors are much better now; they total 17)

The idea is good, the pic is ... totally assymetric and colors are awful... crap in one word but it catches the eye compared to your other works, very original

panda:
1. I know.
2. i do; i just paid zero attention to the palette.
3. i didn't use my plugins at all for this.  I can see how pixelling mathematically could effect my knowedge of stuff like anatomy. though this is one of my least mathematic ever pieces.

BOB: i wanted an avatar. other than that, no.

update.

You should learn anatomy, especially how to do eyes and faces.
And learn how to use more efficient palettes. That picture could be done with at least 16 less colors.
I believe you should try pixelling less mathematically, without relying too much on your plug ins.

I agree with what the rest have said already. It seems kinda....well...not your style. And I understand that is the point of the drawing, which is to draw something in a completely different style than usual. But this piece has me curious as to why you would downgrade so badly. It's not really the llneart that's the problem, but moreover the colors selected...too bright man, my eyes are fixing to pop out!...and yes, I also may under stand the whole fire on head creating the bright colors. But still though, no pixel artist on this site has ever done this before, which is why I'm so curious at the moment as to what might have been the REAL reason for this drawing's downgrade....at any rate I hope to see some more of your older styled works, cause from the looks of things, this one isn't gaining any popularity...

i think that you may also be treating this as if it should be rendered in a similar style to my others. Of course you won't rate it well then: sharp outlines and simple shading are intentional choices in this that are unlike my usual style.

heh..
I *LIKE* spending a lot of time on a picture..
I'm not actually that good at concepts... So currently, when i work on something for a long time, I feel that it's like polishing a piece of crap.
Sure it has interesting textures, lighting, etc -- that's not the point, the point is to communicate a particular idea.

There's lots in more basic areas such as construction, juxtaposition, and expressions, that I don't know. Spending more time on making stuff look good can come after I've gotten to making stuff express what I want.

it is a bit angled. Perhaps it should be a bit more angled.

If you mean that I should use some of the intermediate skin shades to shade more smoothly: If you can think of a way to do it while keeping the sharp look, I will do it.

Nice, but the face could use more shading. And it seems a bit angled.