I did consider trying selout on some recent sprites, so I may give that a go next, using the shadow color for the selout.

As for AA, lately I go for a more NES aesthetic, where there's an outline, a shadow, a midtone, and sometimes a highlight, but no more than four colors on any given surface as a rule of thumb. Part of it is that the social media sites where people are using these portraits stretch or shrink them, slightly blurring them in the process, so you want your pixels as distinct as you can possible get them so that even a blurred sprite is still recognizable as pixel art.

I've done some AA stuff in the past though and may try it more in the future. You do it very well anyway.

Anti-aliasing, mostly. Could also use selout or softer contours.

Any polish in particular?

The lieart is very well done, but the pixeling could use some polish.

Thanks. I appreciate it.

Very nice!