Hi all,

As you can see I am new to this forum. I am actually more of a game designer than a pixel artist, but when I needed portraits for a game idea two years ago, I noticed I quite enjoyed "just" drawing portraits with no particular purpose, and later on I started doing existing people to see if I liked that too.

I have drawn several portraits since and I have certainly improved (I find my first drawings very bad, and that's a good sign). However I haven't seen improvement lately, and I thought, well, that's the moment to ask others for their opinions, suggestions, etc. So I'd like to hear anything you notice you think could be improved, be it lighting, anatomy, coloring, proportions, expression, method, etc. etc. on the pixel piece below:

This is the distribution of colors:
Color counts
Here's how I did it:
Progress image

Reference
Here's the two pictures I used for reference (yes, I am mixing pictures. I'm trying to depict a specific person, not recreate a specific picture ):
Reference image for face
I used this picture for the face, because it had good lighting, has a full frontal view and shows the right emotion.
Reference image for hair
I used this picture for the hair because I liked it better.
I used a third picture for the shirt, but I couldn't find it anymore.

So...what do you think?



EDIT 9 March: please refer to reply #17 for an up-to-date sprite and accompanying reference picture.