-cough-

and i'd advise you to outline the hairflower, for a more consistent look

system? uh.. i use mspaint and my brain looks at the colours black and flesh and comes up with midtones.. (the hue of the skincolour, but waaay less saturation and allso quite a bit darker)

uh what you mean system? like you make every tint -20 saturation or anything? i dont.. my eyes are my tool just look what is a good colour and then use it :D

and some tips about placement:

-you dont need to AA 45degree lines... it'll only blur them

-i usually AA the 2right 1 down lines(you understand me) with 1 colour thats roughly in between the 2 other colours (look at the right side of the upperarm to see what i mean)

-the rest is by feeling and lots of zooming in&out

and i dont use palettes.. wel.. rarely.. only if its for a specific artistic purpose, or in games. but for 'random' pixels its just choosing every time :)

but i dont think he went for a real effect here, seeing as he didnt use his colours to make the thing smooth wisely.. ill show you in a bit what he shouldve done if he intended the effect of ''glowing edges''

edit: quicksie.. accidentally gave a bit to much glow, but what i mean to show is that he just had the same colours on every place (best noticeable on the topside of the arm) and he doesnt use his colours to smooth out. hard to explain.. just look at the 1st and 3rd

i hope this is what you mean by palettes:

in this case yes, i use palettes, as in that i keep using the same colours in the whole piece. but i do not use pre-set palettes. as in ''oh im gonna make a plant'' and i grab my green palette. every time i make a piece, the colours are all hand picked

and i did not change that much about your colours, i just made the darkest skintones a bit less saturated, and i made the greys follow more even steps between shades