Thanks jams0988, I don't think this was one of Morganne's better works, and she's improved a ton since originally making it.
I guess the Pixeljoint administration agree since they picked it for this challenge.
As for the smooth shading, I'm actually using 12 shades of purple so I wouldn't really call it low colour.
If anything I've probably overdone it on the colour count, but I don't see much reason to limit myself on this one.
Progress has slowed significantly, but at least I have made some headway; I've updated my first post with current version.