You seem to be using a lot of colours unnecessarily. The lightest colour in the beard can be replaced by one of the skin tones, the lightest part of the glasses can be replaced with the lightest skin tone, many colours in the hair are near repeats (both of other hair shades, and of skin tones), etc. Also, the colouring is starting to get a bit pillowy, mainly due to the abundance of shades and amount of AA you're using. Limited AA can be used to great effect, as can a small palette, when properly applied.

Overall, though, lots of this comes down to personal preference. High colour count, for example, isn't necessarily bad; it's up to you. I really love these lines, too, and I'm sure the finished piece'll look fantastic. Keep it up

I agree with pkmays. As it stands, the AA just adds jaggies and make the image look a bit blurry. I did a quick edit (which I hope you're ok with) ...



I don't know if the colour count/palette was important to you, but I added a tone (between the black and darkest red), and altered the palette a bit overall. The AA still isn't great, but it gets the point across, I think. With your current palette, effective AA'll be almost impossible (or would be for me, anyway).

This is great, by the way. I love the design and pose and expression and... essentially all of it. Touch up the AA a bit, and my eyes just might cry happy water.

Update, first post. Basically, I upped the contrast, added more highlights, and did some AA fixing. Thanks for the replies, guys.

Sohashu: Done...ish. Dunno if I upped it enough, as he still seems a tad muddy in places, but... Better, worse?

Zach: I think the new highlights might add to the general robosexuality. I may be wrong

Akzidenz: I'm going to play around with the background, see what comes of it. I didn't change anything here, cause I didn't want to add anymore colours or mess with the outlines/AA too much, but I can only imagine the future holds many wonders... or something.

Filax: That edit is fantastic; many thanks for taking the time, putting in the effort on it (really helped highlight some of the problem areas in the original). I didn't alter the colours as much as you did, but I see what you were getting at (and I can only hope I addressed it). As for the sketchy AA and the lack of colour use, I think it has to do with the fact that I was doing this at work. When it was time to go home, I just stopped pixelling, kinda forgot about it, then just... posted it as it was later last night. I worked it some more, and I think I took care of a lot of sloppiness in the update. There is, undoubtedly, much more sloppiness to take care of.

Sharprm: Thanks. By shifting the smoke, do you mean making it, like, blow towards the left? If so, I'll fiddle with it, see if I can implement it in a later update.

Halu: Contrast: in.

Skull: Many thankses.

Again, guys,Thanks much for all the comments, crits. More, please, so I can give this little guy more sexy.

*very minor edit on the update's chest*

Back on topic...

this looks pretty good, but I do have a few crits that will hopefully be helpful.

I think it's a little over AA'd, and as such things are a tad blurry. That's also what's causing the eye to look so big.
There are a few unnecessary colours (near repetitions in the skin/hair tones).
I'm finding it pretty difficult to make out what's going on in certain areas, especially around the arms/hands.
Lastly, the stance looks pretty uncomfortable. I think the legs are too close together or something.

I did an edit (as I'm wont to do) which I think picks up on all this stuff:



Cleaned up the palette a bit, reduced (hopefully) the AA, added a darker shade to help outline in certain places, and widened the stance.
This is coming along pretty nicely. Just work it a bit more and I think it'll look great.

I think the major problem here is that the image consists almost entirely of perfect geometric shapes, and the simplicity of the forms makes everything, well, kinda boring to look at, frankly. The concept is fine, you just need to make your forms more interesting. I made a small example of what you might try for the poles:



This is obviously a very exaggerated, unrealistic-looking example, probably to the point of being over done. That said, I think it's more interesting to look at, and while you shouldn't necessarily take it in this direction, or to this extreme, I think you should experiment with your forms and find something that's both more visually appealing and looks good to you.

I dunno, just something to think about, I guess. Best of luck with it, regardless.

am_pm posted while I was typing and stole my gnarliness. Sorry for any repetition.