Awesome work on the portrait Alex! So detailed and carefully crafted. The face, the breasts, the folds, the arms- all beautfifully shaded. Apart from the solid hair mentioned by flaber (which looks like youre planning on correcting) I have a couple of other things that bother me.
The lineart looks rather awkward. Posing with your arm in such a place, whilst holding a spear, just doesnt do it for me. Something about the angle of her neck and spear makes it almost look like she's just caught a weapon which was aimed at her head.

The hand holding the spear doesnt seem to give any sense of weight, and its angle loooks like it was drawn before the rest of the character. It just doesnt look like it's holding the spear tight enough to actually hold it.

The only other thing is her right eye. Cover it with your finger (against the monitor) and the face looks great. It just seems like it needs to be shifted down slightly. It ain't easy lining up facial features at this sort of angle.

I know I'm being nitpicky, and am by no means a pixel master, but it just seems a shame to not have this incredible piece absolutely perfect. Once again, the level of '3D rendered' detail youve managed to attain with a few pixels is brilliant.

The sprite is also tight. I like that you gave her unconventionally wider-than-the-average-femme-video-game-character hips. The only thing I'd consider is substituting the dark black AA with perhaps a tad lighter colour and remove the slightly pillowness to the thigh shading.

EDIT: Forgot to nominate a website were I accepted into this thing. I'll just use my pixel joint gallery for the time being please: http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixels/profile.asp?id=279

Apart from what Helm said, I'm a little confused about whats going on with his feet (the pointy ankle bit where they join the shoe) and legs (especially HIS left leg which seems to bow awkwardly).

I really like the colouring though, theres some nice tight tonal, lighting and AA work here. The mario star badge is a nice touch aswell. I also like that you didn't make the eyes typically oversized, like many anime style portraits.

Some VERY impressive works here. I sort of rushed mine, starting and finishing in an afternoon.
His name is Brutus the Mechanic. He was slightly inspired by some Hayao Miyazaki's background pilot characters in the film 'Porco Rosso.'
Sprite:

Portrait:


Edit: No idea why I made him wear skin tight, metallic-looking socks for shoes.

This sounds like an excellent competition with an excellent oppurtunity for employment (something I'm looking for!). It's just the worst timing for me though. I start my final high school certificate (HSC) exams next week which run for about month. Good luck to anyone else entering!