Keep em coming? I think you too quickly rebuffed Bengoshia's advice and edit, it improves on your piece in virtually every way. I'd go back, look carefully at what he did and try to do the same, because if THAT edit didn't help I don't know what would.
To reiterate some of the things he did, and contrast with your approach:
- He made a palette that can give the impression of the object being 3D. Yours is just a flat peach color, plus some slightly darker colors
- He used shadow and light to create the volume of the guy, you used lines, then threw a little shadow into the border of each box created. Trying to draw with lines on such a small guy is not a good choice usually, it will make it look confusing.
- His face gives the impression of being a 3d object, yours is a flat object with pixels on it. I understand you want to go with the anime style, and thats fine, but it's not an excuse to be lazy. Even anime characters are 3d.
Heres a thread where you can see a bunch of approaches (some comedic) to the type of sprite your going for:
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=7301.0And thats really what I think the forum is about, trying something, and then seeing how someone else (perhaps someone with greater skill) would approach and execute it. But the most important part is trying to integrate their knowledge, by seeing what they do differently and attempting it. Good luck.