what other pixel art?
what could be construed as artifacts is that next to black, you're buffering into your deep bluish gray shades THROUGH A RETINA BURNING RED. Which isn't a good choice, artistically, pixel-art wise or whatever.
As for cheating, no such thing in the land of professional design, whatever gets the job done and gets the desired product on the desired platform is how I see it. I say if you know tricks to get high detail stuff done in 10x less time then you are truly a professional. Time is money.
Sure, I agree. Being 'pro' equals getting the job done, in time, with high quality. But a 'pro' pixel artist in my book isn't just one who gets paid. It's one who knows all the pixel art techniques and uses them to the advantage of his artwork. I don't think this is professional design though, this is ryumaru making a crazy large pixel art portrait
there are no 'rules' to having fun, either, I agree, but this board doesn't have much to tell to people who take shortcuts for props and faux-respect like colour-reducing CG pieces to 'LOL FOOL US'. Not saying this piece is such, I don't think it is. Seriously, I eagerly await to see the progress on this.