I totally saw beard and pipe at first-glance, too!  Cute little owl.

It's a fenced off area in your back yard where your pet dino can run around to get fresh air and exercise.

Love these cartoony icons with the saturated colours.  Great palette and excellent forms!

I also found the image to be somewhat hard to "read" on first view of the preview.  For me, I think it was that the details of the cat were getting lost being against the same-coloured background while the details of the dog were being lost in the same-coloured flash.  Looking at it again, I was able to work out what was happening in the image and I can clearly see it is a nicely detailed image.

Very well done.  There are some aliased lines that would benefit from anti-aliasing and some anti-aliased lines that seem to have some banding.  The outline on the back of his neck would probably be better as the darker color you used to outline the top of his head.  That said, the most important parts - his eyes and facial features - are all very well defined.  It looks great!

These are fantastic!  Great job!

This is cute.  I like the color palette, the general look and silhouette of the character, and the simple animation.

I wonder if being more consistent with the selective shading of the outline would improve the image.  I'm thinking it might work to use the light shade on the lightest part of the outline for the top of his head.  It might, then, also make sense to lighten the outline on his belly.  Alternatively, it might be good to darken the outline of his right hand, left hand, and lower body.  Or, it might be just fine as it is.

There is one little thing I would like to suggest for the animation: I feel it would look better if his feet stayed planted throughout.  You could still have his knees move out to show that he's bobbing in place, but I feel the feet should stay firmly in place as it is unnatural for them to push out like that.

I can make out only seven colors, counting transparency, yet the info on the image description says there are eight colors.  Is there a stray color in there that could be removed or is the info wrong?  I understand there was white in the eyes before; was that the eighth color?

My first impression on seeing this piece is that it was an image of a humanoid alien; the pure white skin and large, solidly black eyes made it feel that way to me.  As you mention it is a self-portrait, I suspect this was not your intention.  I wonder if you might be able to find a more suitable skin-tone within the original NES palette or if you might be able to use the shades of grey you have available here to better define facial features.  Note also that, to me, the line I am interpreting as the bridge of the character's nose appears to begin above the eybrow line.

I feel as though the shading on his face could be improved; that both sides of his face are outlined and shaded suggests a little bit of pillow-shading as it seems contrary to the lightsource.  With his head turned a little to his right, I feel like we should be able to see his left ear; it likely could be defined with a little work.

The shading on his body also feels odd to me.  It makes more sense if I see it as being a two-tone jacket he is wearing, with the right side black and the left side orange.  If you intended it to be a solidly orange jacket, I feel the black shading should change to the dark orange.  The orange on the sleeve of his left arm and on his left pant leg feels out of place; they don't seem to work with the lightsource to suggest solidly orange clothing shaded gray in dark areas, instead it feels like oddly-shaped orange patterns on the garmets.

From the hair, face, and lighter outline on the right side of his body, I interpreted the lightsource as being on the left side of this image.  I later realized that, given the lighting on the building and the rocket, the lightsource should be on the right side of the image.

I find it odd that you outlined the right half of his body in gray instead of black.  If his jacket is two-tone and black on that side, I could understand this choice as an attempt to show that the black is being illuminated by the lightsource.  However, I feel it wouldn't light it up in this way and feel that the pant-leg on that side and the exposed side of his raised left arm should also be illuminated on the edge.

The design of the flagpole felt odd to me and, with a quick image-search for a flag-bearer, I found that most (but not all) flags have a ball or decorative piece on top of the pole and have nothing down on the bottom end of the pole.

If the magic coming from his hand would be a lightsource, I would expect the raised palm of his hand to be the lighter colour but it appears darker.

I feel I would like the option to view this image at 1x size in the gallery here; as Pixeljoint's gallery has zoom options built-in, we are still able to zoom in to view it like this so I feel it would be preferable to also have the option to view it at 1x size.  That said, I understand the desire to display it at 2x size as the default and believe it should be up to you to decide how your work is displayed.

Viewing the image at 1x size in paint, I found the two cubic buildings produce a weird flickering effect from the dithering.  It may be due to my monitor but I think it has something to do with an optical illusion; if planning to display this at 1x size, I wonder if you could make some changes to those buildings to eliminate this as it would be rather distracting.

Regarding the color count here, I see it says six colors in the image description but I can see at least eight colors in the image.  Can the color count in the description be corrected?

I like the buildings in the background and I like the way the rocket is launched up through the abstractly defined layers in the sky.  If you are open to some constructive criticism on this, let me know and I'll either post it here or do it through PM.

I feel that the wings move too rigidly; I think they should probably be bending and curving more strongly.  The wings also feel oddly positioned or too large at the base; the bottom seems to connect around the shoulderblades and the top seems to connect around the base of her skull.

I think the bounce to her breasts is too exaggerated.  Much of this feeling comes from how her breasts retain their shape as they bounce.  I feel it makes them look fake and, while the idea of a faerie with implants is amusing, I'm sure it's not what you intended.  Also, that they move together vertically in a way that makes me percieve them as a unit; it feels like they're physically stuck together.

Aside from those things, this is very nice.  The colour choices and shading work really well on her skin and hair.  The animation of her hair, her hands, her left leg, and the pixie dust are all very pleasant and, I feel, nicely timed.  Some have criticized the pose.  I don't really have a problem with the "invisible chair" effect.  I feel the animation wouldn't really work as an "idle" stance, but I think it would work quite nicely as a "moving backward" animation.

Nice work.

I really like what you were able to do with this simple pallete.  It looks great!

I really like the of a sundial that uses a mechanical hand outside of it to move the lightsource around to display the time.  I want one.

Congratulations on winning the weekly challenge!

Such a hypnotic animation.  This piece is so very well done!  I like how the full-color sprite comes as a surprise from seeing the monochrome preview.  The movement in her face, breaking up the repetition, goes above and beyond what one would have expected.  The thin strands of hair sliding out from her curls are a neat touch.  You did a great job!

I agree that some frames of her straightening up after the bow would help the animation a lot.  After looking at some of Clairvoire's earlier examples of this character, I feel the big curls of hair could be bigger, as RileFiery pointed out, and I feel they could be shaded a bit differently to look more like hair.  As-is, they look a little too thick and solid, like pieces of pasta.  Aside from those points, though, the image and animation are very well done.

You succeeded in making a peaceful scene.  I love your decision to animate the pinwheel, leaves, and the sleeping girl.  The palette was chosen well; it does a good job suggesting a nice, warm, afternoon.

I don't particulalry like the way in which the keyhole was antialiased.  I know you may not have been able to antialias some areas because of the color restriction but having some areas aliased and some antialiased feels unabalanced to me.  I also feel like there may be too much antialiasing on the upper, rounded edge of the keyhole at the moment.  It feels like the antialiasing is distorting the rounded shape in that area and making it feel a little fuzzy.  The antialiasing on the lower part is feels better to me but still makes it feel fuzzy to me.  I noticed other people are having a similar problem.  The entire keyhole might be better off without the antialiasing, but that's just my opinion.

I wish you luck in this challenge.  Your entry is very appealing and is quite likely to get my vote when all the submissions are brought together next week.  It will be hard to top this.

This is a pleasant piece.  A nice, soft palette, quality shading and antialiasing, a pleasing composition and dynamic movements bring this cute anime character design to life.  There is a lot of detail in this image that was executed very well.

While looking over the character, I, too, found the bright outline to be a bit distracting, especially with how much of it is present in the little area containing the hand, fabric, and petals.  The bright outline does a lot to help the image pop off a dark backround and I like it.  It gives a good first impression and only felt distracting while looking to that area of the image.  I think it works well in the end.

The next thing I noticed was the sharp effect the dark outline has on the charcter's shins and ankles.  Within the image, her legs are outlined in a brighter color and are antialiased very well but this stops suddenly with the application of the dark outline.  This feels especially off on her right shin and foot where I particularly feel like the antialiasing should continue.  I also wonder if the shape of the shin and ankle on her right foot could be reworked a little as the sizing seems a little odd to me.

Lastly, something I noticed only after staring at the image for far too long: the extended hand feels like it is in an awkward position and oddly shaped.  My initial thought in viewing the image was that she has her hand out, palm up, to catch the falling petals.  It occured to me that, thinking of it as the back of her hand, I felt her pinky finger was too short and stubby.  Given the shading on the hand and her expected reaction to be looking to catch the falling petals, it does feel as though I am seeing the back of her right hand but I realized that it would probably be very difficult and uncomfortable for her to hold her hand in such a way for the back of her hand to be viewed like that at this angle.   I feel that the angle she is holding her hand would need to be changed as we probably would not be seeing all five fingers from this angle if she is holding her hand out to catch the falling petals.

I then realized that the fingers appear to be curving away in a direction that didn't make sense for thinking of it as the back of her hand.  Thinking of it as the front of her hand, now, the curvature of the fingers and the viewing angle make some sense to me.  If we are seeing the palm of her hand, then I feel the pinky should be elongated and made to feel more in-line with the other fingers.  If we are seeing the palm of her hand, I feel the line of her thumb should continue deeper into the palm and wonder if more shading and lines could be added to detail the palm differently.

I dunno.  I'm pretty sure it's meant as the back of her hand and I feel the angle doesn't work if that's the case but hands are a really tricky thing to draw and the angle we are viewing the character at is an unusual one.  Part of my problem, too, is having trouble figuring out if it is the front or back of the hand.  If it's the back of her hand, defining some knuckles might help; if it's the palm of her hand, drawing some palm lines or shading the inner curvature might help.

I hope I haven't offended you with this wall of text.  I really like the design of this charcter, the pose, the composition, the palette, and the skill with which you applied an anime-style to this work.  The shading in her hair, the folds in the patterned fabric of her skirt, the shine in her eyes and her cheerful expression are all wonderful details.  I see from your other works here that you are quite capable in different sizes and styles an>*** Message truncated (4000 chars max) ***

These three DBZ portraits you've created are the nicest images in your gallery.  They are fairly clean works of pixel-art that show off the iconic characters rather well.  You did a good job translating your reference images to the smaller scale of pixel art.  While I don't know if this type of work is appropriate for this gallery, I feel your description of this as Original Lineart and Design is inappropriate; with a quick search on Google, I believe I found the image you used as a reference in creating this work.  While your shading and lineart do differ in some ways, there is still a significant resemblance to http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130102180102/dragonball/images/a/a6/MajinBuuKidDebutNV.png

I believe that re-sizing existing images can be a useful excercise for learning pixel-art techniques.  For this work, my one point of criticism would be regarding the black hoes or dots on this character.  I feel it is odd that you neglected to antialias the three dots on the shaded side of his head; it makes these ones feel different from all the rest and it seems like it would have made sense to shade them the same way as the ones on the shaded side of his body.  That said, I wonder also if something could be done while staying within this pallete to make the dots feel more likey the fit onto the curved surface rather than all being at the same size and facing.

These three DBZ portraits you've created are the nicest images in your gallery.  They are fairly clean works of pixel-art that show off the iconic characters rather well.  You did a good job translating your reference images to the smaller scale of pixel art.  While I don't know if this type of work is appropriate for this gallery, I feel your description of this as Original Design is inappropriate; with a quick search on Google, I found the image you used as a reference in creating this work.  The shading and lineart for this image all come from http://anjoicaros.deviantart.com/art/Perfect-Cell-DBZ-Androids-amp-Cell-Saga-367885527

I believe that re-sizing existing images can be a useful excercise for learning pixel-art techniques.  For this work, my one point of criticism would be regarding the side of his face that is in shadow.  I feel that it is too dark and wonder if it might look nicer if you were to lighten it up a notch.  I wonder how it would look to have the black part of his helmet changed to the dark brown used in the spots and then continue the spotty pattern with black within that area.  Or it might be better to simply shrink the percentage of that area that is black, increasing the percentage that is the dark green to more closely match the reference image.  As for the face, I feel the cheek area is too dark on that side, too, and wonder if it would look okay to shade it using the darkest color from the lighter cheek as the base and the current base of the dark cheek as the shade.  I would also recommend removing the shaded line from under the eye on that side as it currently creates a feeling that the eye is dissimalarly sized in comparison to the other eye; I feel it would help to have increased symmetry here.

These three DBZ portraits you've created are the nicest images in your gallery.  They are fairly clean works of pixel-art that show off the iconic characters rather well.  You did a good job translating your reference images to the smaller scale of pixel art.  While I don't know if this type of work is appropriate for this gallery, I feel your description of this as Original Lineart is inappropriate; with a quick search on Google, I found the image you used as a reference in creating this work.  The shading and lineart for this image all come from http://moe.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/370157020.jpg

I believe that re-sizing existing images can be a uselful excercise for learning pixel-art techniques.  As others had mentioned, some of the lines show banding; the anti-aliasing could be improved in several areas.  The outline around the preview image gives a similar impression.  Reading more about anti-aliasing and banding would surely be helpful.

I'm really impressed with the entries this time!  Great work, all of you!