I would rather not change the mouth but cut off some of her left cheek.
In my eyes, the problem seems to look like trying to draw the meaning rather than what is visible.
I mean, the side of the cheek exists and you are trying to draw it, but really it is not visible from this angle.

Trying to reuse a classic pose for a dragon.
Not exactly the same pose as in references, though, I might have messed it up.

(yes, it was the recent dragon thread that reminded me of the plan to try this)

Hello.

I am a pixel hobbyist with limited time to practice, and therefore I need to find ways to make my drawing faster. My current plan to achieve that is:

1. Draw like Google image search for "single ligt source". Highlights seem enough if done right, and if not done right it will look wrong with no matter how detailed shadows. Maybe I will need to make a compromise here and use a very dark (but still flat) version of the material color for full shadows, rather than making all full shadows the same dark color (my current intention). So that would be about 1/4 less pixels to shade. Also, with same color brightest highlights, it leaves just the midtones to worry about as far as material color is concerned.

2. Smaller sprites, like 32x32. I find those interesting, because of the challenge to simplify. More specifically, I tried to redraw, say, a Nethack ant sprite, and found that the old less detailed version was more pleasant than my new overly detailed version with fancy highlights and stuff. I mean, this version was more pleasant even when scaled to 32x32: http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/File:Giant_ant.png

In order to avoid confusion, I think it was better to have this explanation in one place which is here, rather than all over the drawing threads. Those two goals are open for discussion in the drawing threads, though.

My criticism tolerance is rather high, especially as criticism has resulted in progress in the past. I would prefer people getting their point across over trying to be polite. Real impressions is what matters.

In the past I have made a few sprites and animations for Battle for Wesnoth (http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=31323), as they often have dark full shadows there.
I am considering doing sprites for a randomly generated roguelike (I don't believe in the open world hype), and that would be a lot of small sprites for dark dungeons.