Damn that's good. The motion is so fluid and the colors are perfect! I love the wobbling of the cables all over the place and the way the light falls on that front leg as it moves. My two crits are that the antennae movement is kind of jagged, and also the metal foot of the front leg looks less crisp than the other ones, the way the colors are graduated over it. Overall it's a really cool design and very well-executed.

The shapes are better there, but the hair issue is still there. See how the right side of the hair is so much wider than the left? That's what makes it look like we're seeing the side of his head, rather than the front. That, and the fact that we see so much more of his left ear (our right again) than the other one.

~

As for the dithering, I think I like it. With all the thick globs of color in most of the piece it's kind of nice to see a thinner texture scattered here and there. It's especially good in the shirt, I think.

Good to see your work here again, I've missed your style! Good stuff.

The overall rendering of things is neat in this one particularly the hair and the background. Really like the colors.

Two things strike me as odd: the first is that his left shoulder (our right) seems to connect weirdly to his neck, almost as if it's super swollen. The second was less obvious to me at first but the direction of his face and his hair don't seem to line up. Looking at just his hair it looks like he's looking to the side, but the font of his face looks like it's looking straight forward.

I think Ego's points are spot-on About the AA stuff. This is a very nice composition overall and I think the waves especially are rendered quite well.

I'm with ADrawingMan here, this can definitely make it into the challenge with the addition of a simple background. Hope you try it out!

I see what Mathias and Delicious are getting at, but I think this piece has a certain gritty quality to it as well as its sketchiness which is really aided by the pixel art medium. I personally think this is a great application of pixel art. Not only inventive, but effective.

 Yeah, I realized the highlight was a little hard by comparison, but I thought that gave more of a wetness effect. Maybe the effect wasn't as I thought after all.

Jal, I updated it with a scale texture and a softer highlight. What do you think?

Also, can anybody point me toward a reference to help me animate this guy swimming? I've been having a hard time finding anything myself. I can find diagrams, but I'd like to see an actual animation to model after.

 Thanks guys!

@Jal: by hard highlight, are you talking about the kind of highlight I have right below the dorsal fin? If not, maybe you could show me what you mean? I had originally intended to do scales, but ended up not. The sprite is only  in the game for about a second and a half, so that much detail isn't really needed... but I might still do it for practice's sake 

 I do think that's better. This is a very good tree--a lot of depth and a lot of crisp detail. I'm looking forward to seeing more from you.

 Very impressive, especially for your first submission! The foliage is well defined and has some nice variety in its clusters. The trunk looks pretty nice, though the amount of contrast in the leaves makes the trunk look a little flat in comparison. Maybe add a bit more light/dark contrast to the trunk, to even it out with the leaves? But good work so far!

Awww yeah. King would be awesome. Ballos would be incredible.

 I love getting to see your choices in coloring and shapes in that WIP. Looks great.

 These are gorgeous. They look like they were fun to make.

 Nicely done. The balance between detail and simplicity is sweet. The trunk looks a tad pillowy and bright though. It might help to get a little more shadow falling on the trunk.

Amazing coloring. Clear, crisp, and interesting. Great shapes too.

 This is great. Not sure if philippe was giving a crit or a compliment about the face looking like a watercolor painting, but I think that's what makes it look so good. I really like that look. He's right about the hair though, specifically that greyish shade at the top of the hair. Otherwise your color choice looks really good. As far as I can tell, the shapes and anatomy are great too.

 This is a really really cool style. I like the current colors, the 2 shades of gray give it much more presence.

 It's so simple... yet so nice. Beautiful.

 Aw yeah, nice sprite! I like your colors. The shape of the barrel he's holding looks oddly bent though, I feel like it should be more round.

I knew it was your work as soon as I saw the preview. I love the red. Like Friend said, it looks like real paint strokes. The tones you used are great. The anatomy could use work, as was mentioned. The arm on the right (his left arm) looks a little smaller than the other. The fingers on that same hand all look to be about the same length, too--not only that, but it looks like he has an extra finger (the thumb shouldn't come out as far as the other fingers). The light clouds in the bottom left are less finished-looking than the red area. The use of black is really nice in this piece, I really like how the bottom right corner melts into the character's figure. Also, the border is a nice touch.

 Very cool art. Somehow I didn't notice the treble cleff at first, but it's my favorite part now that I see it. I think Wake is my favorite on the album. Danse is cool too.

 Wow. You really used those colors in a fantastic way. Beautiful work.

Nice colors, for the most part. But where's his tie?

 Really charming! I like the tail a lot.

 They've been out for a long time, I've stopped expecting them to come back. Last time they went down I lost everything on my profile, too  too bad, it was a great site. Could have used a better interface, though.