Hello. Welcome to pixelation. I can tell you're new in the artform of pixels. Here's a lot of critique that might be of use to you.
First of all, yes, mspaint is not something most seasoned artists will suggest you use. I use Cosmigo Pro Motion but it's not free. Many people use Graphics Gale, some use Gfx2 (which recently recieved a windows build), some even still use Deluxe Paint on their emulators and such. Search and find what suits you.
Second, don't work on a white background, it'll make the whole image look more washed out, well, not exactly. It'll make you think your piece is darker than it really is and therefore you'll choose lighter colors to compensate, and this way you actually will end up with a washed out piece on any other background color than white. I suggest a pleasant middle tone with a slight hue you can update through cycling the color spectrum as you work to see if anything sticks out.
Third, if you use reference (photographs or anything else) here in Pixelation, we strongly encourage you to state that fact and supply the reference. This isn't just copy protecti-- this isn't just protection against plagiarists, it's also a good idea. If we can see your reference we can tell you how far off the likeness you might be.
Fourth, you use a lot of colors. Your mindset is this right now: 'every new thing I draw needs its own set of colors. The eyeball needs one, the hair need their three, the nosetrill needs one, the shirt needs three, the inner shirt needs three.' This leads to a very big palette with no reuse and a very plastic, almost consumer design aesthetic which you should be aware of. If you like it, sure, go with the big compartmentalized palette. However from your piece of 25 indexes I scaled back to 16 colors and I ask you, which seems more colorful, yet harmonious? There were a lot of just redundant shades as well which could be removed without any information
or detail loss.
I used less colors but covered a lot more ground because I reuse a color from the shirt in the face or in the hair and so on. How can I bridge the gaps? I make the hue drift as the color changes. The face has greens, purples, browns in it now, which I can use in the clothes and in the hair and vice versa. This is done a lot in pixel art and I personally do it waaay more than I did in the edit below, which is pretty tame but you might not want something more colorful or extreme. Search the forum for 'hue shifting' for more on how and why most pixel artists around here do this. It isn't just a 'style'. It's a very valuable skill for the pixel artist on the whole.
Fifth, I would suggest cleaner contrasts that help shape the forms and also to use more range in values. There's very little dark in your image as it is, and the middle range is also underused for a lot of bright stuff. Is this intentional?
Sixth, I uh, used a lot of pixel art tech to shade the edit. I used antialiasing, but very carefully to not make things more blurry or to create banding (if these terms are new to you, please run searches in our forums as they've been addressed a lot of times in the past.
Here's the edit:
What I love about your piece is that it has an attitude about it (which I tried to augment). It tells me that -unless you're working heavily from reference, in which case I wouldn't really know- you have a good eye for character and you know your way through other types of art, which is great. Pixel techniques can be taught and Pixelation is here for that. Concept of aesthetics and characterization cannot as easily be conveyed here.
This is my first good deed for 2009. Have a nice new year.