Hmm, helms right, the arms do seem rather short (Nice sketch helm.) Tremulant, you did a very excellent job on the face and concept; I hope you don't trash/delete this pic. It only needs some tweaking, mostly what helm did + lengthening arms (or shortening legs). Large pixel pieces such as this are hard to rush, they take an obcene amount of time to detail, tweak, and refine. Like you said, this was definately a good learning experience.
And good luck with exams =)