I'm new here, but maybe I can help. Ignore anything you don't agree with though, I am almost nil on experience.
First off, your rendition is very hard to read. I couldn't tell what it was at first. Looking at your reference, I can see a semblance, but the two don't seem to correlate in many ways. These look like they may be stylistic choices, so maybe I'm just completely overseeing it, but... where are the legs? And arm-paw things? A lot of space is taken up by those in the reference, and I don't see either here.
Apart from the amputations, I found the face hard to read. Now I know that's a smile in the face from your reference, but at first it looked less like that. If I knew the character I could have guessed perhaps, but I don't. Maybe you could make it thinner, maybe anti-alias it.
The body could also use some more shading. At the moment it looks like a piece of flat felt, not really a flowing skirt. It's also a different size viewing from the front and the back (or at least it appears to be) and that's a bit unsettling. (I think the size you used for the rear view is better, personally. More proportional, for what proportionality's worth
) (And it looks like you just forgot to put on an outline. IMO, either it should have an outline around the whole thing, or none at all. For now it looks like the head's much more defined than the body.)
I must complement you on the hood though. I can really tell the ears are ears, and the hood is a hood. The shading's really nice, and the back matches the front well.
Good luck with this, it could be neat. Looks like a sprite from an RPG or something.
