Generally speaking its ok. It has form and volume and it does read...
However, at this stage its not pixelart. You have Oekaki (pixelart's little brother). The difference is precision and deliberate pixel placement.
In your brain don't 'paint' with pixels, instead use light to define the areas with only the pixels that are needed and nothing else. Smooth and soften with AA. Use jaggy areas to your advantage by coloring the lineart where needed.
The wings especially have far too much sqribbling to read well (see 'hall of fame' in front gallery page.
This is from the noobtorial thread:

You should call him 'Gand-OWL-f'

Looking much cleaner. C:
Some of the brown hues and blue hues are similar, so you could probably ax one (or a few) of them to make color management easier.

Instead of the lines you have on the wings now, it would look better if you defined actual feathers.

This new design doesn't work as well as you original did.

Like all art, pixelart is a visual communication so you need to focus on having your ideas read clearly. The wings will give you problems until you understand that pixelart likes 'less'. Things like feathers might seem to need a lot of pixels but to read and communicate you need the least amount of pixels.
As I mentioned before place in your brain the 'lights' and 'shadows' of a feathered wing and ignore the feathers.
This is a little bigger than your piece but clearly shows that the feathers are created by just indicating the dark and light within the feathers

This is more in the scale you are working on. Notice here too the feather 'effect' is creating by indicating some dark and light within the wing using the least amount of pixels

This example, also in the same scale, is similar to the red bird but with slightly more pixelwork.

Feathers are difficult even for the experienced so don't give up. You'll learn a lot about handling pixels from this piece.


The scratchy/messy business within the wings in your piece indicate that you are fighting your brain. You understand that feathers are busy and full of details and made of many lines...you are trying to force that in.

An example. If you made a tree you would most likely use the same technique of over drawing/pixelling/sqruibbling as you have in the wings.
Your brain knows that trees have a lot of tiny leaves and trying to place them all in leads to a pixel pudding. However drawing by light and shadow you would get better results.

Concentrate on one thing at a time. The techniques used in the wings also apply to fabric, hair and pretty much anything at all...its pixel placement precision. Once you cross that hurdle you'll be on your way :)