This looks great i love every part of it keep it up

The blue highlights are interesting and i love palettes based on brown and blue. but I can still notice a little 'noisy texturing' as pointed out by Shiny. why don't you adopt a 'macchiaioli' approach, that would be drawing large splashes of color, with soft edges, that melt gently into each other? i think especially the darkest and lightest spots should be slightly hinted, and not accentuated. you've already done what i mean on those two lines over his right eye, you should do the same everywhere and soften the harsh dark lines. i've had time just for the nose and mouth, but i hope it will be useful anyway:

Oh, well, for some reason I thought there was only the OP in this thread and I made an edit which mostly addresses points that Shiny has already covered. I'll share it anyway:



As for the new piece, I recommend altering the perspective so the horizon line is around eye-level with the subject, occluding the top of the hay.

Be mindful of noisy texture with stuff like hay and fur. Work in nice, clean pixel clusters to keep the pixel work crisp and readable.

Eh, with the new HUD Color Picker, who needs that extra workspace clogger? I use the HUD picker constantly.