Hmm,

Not sure if I have too much else to add at this point, the edit you did on the big version is definitely an improvement.

The small version could use some clean-up here and there. The color range exercise is a good one, personally I like things with high contrast.

Being self taught is hard, you need to be able to judge yourself as hard as you can and as accurate as you can. I'm self taught too, and from my experience, the key for improving is to absorb as much information as you can from people who is further on the learning curve and practice right away. I do really recommend watching Marco Bucci, Modern Day James, Proko or similar channels on YouTube (Again, I can't stress this enough, the more you learn things not related to pixel art the fastest your progress at pixel art will be. The improvement is 10 times faster than if you learn with only pixel art).

I think a topic you may find useful for improving is Value, color often masks our mistakes, so working only in black and white (AKA Value Only) at least for a bit should make it easier for you to spot what you can improve. If it reads good in black and white, color is just a pinch of salt on top.

Here's a work I did a couple weeks ago as an example, that although not great, things have a good readability both on color and on black and white (Value Only)



Here's the last edit you did with the same treatment. Shapes loose a bit of readability don't you think? For example, the leg and arm on the far side look closer than the leg and arm on the closest side.



A last piece of advice to close is squint your eyes as much and as often as you can when drawing, If things are readable doing this, they will be crystal clear when not doing it.

Hope this helps a bit!

I was going to submit mine, saw the amazing work of everyone else and decided to redo my piece xD The bar is quite high on this one!

I truthfully doubt a mod step in but please remove the artwork that doesn't belong to you from your portfolio, namely:



Sources:

https://ahruon.tumblr.com/post/109238517280/almost-theeere
https://ahruon.tumblr.com/post/105648722685/next-three-stay-tuned-for-next-update#notes
https://ahruon.tumblr.com/post/105125401795/lucina-was-the-most-requested-its-also-one-of#notes

Seems like you already had an account banned from this site for this behaviour:

https://pixelation.org/index.php?action=profile;u=171887

Let's keep our community truthful and healthy please!

SeinRuhe - I was really happy to see this much response
I would love to see your lizard from the past!  and feel welcome to do your own take on this one for sure!
So about lights. That light ball next to it is very helpful. To me, on it it looks like the light comes from the top, on the lizard the light is from the top and sort of from the left. Your arm looks much better with the cluster of light rather than my strings. However, if the light would come from the top, or a bit more to the right, I find it a bit hard to figure out how the light would work on the arm, since the light would be somewhat more parallel to underarm itself. If it from the top and the arm is at an angle, wouldn't it look rather similar to how it looks now?
I really like your colors. I want to place this creature in a sort of dank and cold area, while I do feel yours is warmer and nicer to look at, how to think about the area it is placed in?
Thank you!

Well, this technique works both ways, the rule of thumb goes: If the light is warm, shadows should be cold. If the light is cold, shadows should be warm. This light behaviour really happens on nature most of the time, is just really subtle. There are lots and lots of exceptions and you can also completely ignore this, but is a nice thing to have to in mind to make colors look pleasing in a sort of easy way.



The way light interacts with planes is simple, yet really *really* really hard if you're still getting the hang of it. My suggestion in this case is to leave the rationalization aside for a bit and simply grab a flashlight, your cellphone, a candle or any source of light, lock yourself in the darkest place you can find and see how light interacts with your arm from any given angle. This exercise should give you the insight you are looking for.

The light ball is just a reminder for the lightsource direction, you can use it or not as long as you have the direction clear on your mind.

If you want to give a look to my lizard here it is, is really old and have lots and lots of mistakes so you shouldn't take it as an example!

Spoiler: Show Lizardman

EDIT: If you really, really want to understand how light works you could also read the book "How To Render" or "Color and Light", For what I understand seems like the concept that is confusing you is Light Decay/Falloff.