I appreciate the (sort of) compliment, but it's in no way a color reduction. Feel free to take the original and try it out; the shapes are off, and the shadows and what-not don't match up. I did this with a dual monitor setup, just going back and forth between the original and this. I'm not terribly creative, but I can also freehand a drawing of your face that's fairly accurate if you don't mind sitting for a few hours. You can also see some of the previous versions wherein I still had the background layer if you take the URL and go back from 5; there's tree_4, 3, 2 and tree.png. I won't post them, but if you're curious...
I went with a pretty narrow palette, true. I'm thinking about adding a lighter green for highlights.