i think that you pillow shaded it, look it up. you need to decide on where the lights is coming from and keep it to that.
And it feels like its a bit unbalanced, like if it will tip over, head first if it stodd like that. so maybe bend the legs a bit differently. But i lióve the detailed face, it feels alive. Make the stripe on its back not so straight, so they also feels more realistic and alive   

highlight the yollow on its hands, just felt odd to not have any highligts there when you have it on its body

maybe add som shadows, so it feels more alive. And change all the black colors to a wery darrk blue may helps

first of all i want to tell you that it was a really nice drawing and very nice style.
The problems is with anatomy.

And second of all i want to point out that im not good at anime pixel style, so the porportions may be wrong and such, maybe not you flavor or whatever, but i did a redraw so you maybe get som inspiration to how to continue your work. ((Also im also kinda newish to pixel art))

What i did


     Hair
-I totally got how you want the hair to look like, i dig it. it was really haard to get her bangs to work with me, and somtimes you need to simplify it all. Now when i look back at your bangs vs mine, mine maybe is to round for the anime style you were searching for, you maybe want to make them a bit edgy.

- remeber that the hair should be drawn behind Both her shoulders. use your logic

          Anatomy

The overall body shape (just body not head) gets smaller and smaller further down.

-I brought the legs closer togheter, and made them a bit longer

You said "Even using a dress to hide where her legs start, I still can't get this to look proper"

thats the problem, you tried to work it around instead of fixing the fondation. You can only cheat this way once you know the basic anatomy/porptotions/bodyshapes/how the body funktion

- i moved her right arm closer to her body and made the upper arm shorter (wanna know a secret? the elbow is where the bellybutton is, so its the same lenght between the shoulder down the elbow, as for the shoulder down to the bellybutton)

- her left arm, i redid it so you can see a bit of her arm below her hand. Its usually that way, if you dont want to have it like that, you need to have the hand more stretched out awway from the body. That way, the arm is more of line and you wont see any of itt below her hand

- i took her head and moved it one pix to the left, to make her look more relaxed

- feets, i did her right foot a bit bigger. it wouldnt look that she got smaller and smaller firther down, if you balanced it out. And because of the perspective, her right feet (i think) is closer to us, so that foot should be bigger

          Skin and face

- i changed the darkes skin color to a more red color. The orgginal color feelt so green/yellowish ( when you shade, dont just make the color darker change the hue, either to a more red or blue hue, this way the pic will feel more alive)

- sorry i had to change the eye color, use whatever color you want but not black, not if there isnt any more black in the drawing, it will stick out as a sore tumb. Buuut you can also use it as somthing good, if you want to draw attention to somthing peculiarly
I also think that its a good idea to have colored eyes because you want a more anime style

- the eye whites arent usually white, so i took the lightest color you had on your colorscheme, but maybe thats just personal preference

          staff

- i literally just drawn a line and adapted the hands to it. Made it a bit thicker. i think you wanted a feel of old croocked branch, its probably easy to adjust. Just do a straight line, and instead of it going thick - thin do som medium - thick - thin thing with it

- i redid the top of the staff, i know that you didnt say that thats what you requested, but i think that with simpler design, it wont be so timeconsuming when one tries to get the right shape in certain perspectives

- i gave it a high light

          Shoes and dress

- i did a verision with brown shoes. idk. my though was it would gave more attention to her hair, and made the hair more special and magic (and i added another lighter brown to the shoes)

- i reshaded the cloth so the shadows and highlights followed the clothes vawe a bit more. but i just want to add that im no expert on how to shadow clothes


          other

- i found som pillow shading, so i redid that

- i found outline pixels that was inconsistent ( like 4 pix, 3,3,2,1,2,2) and redid them (to 4 pix, 3,3,3,2,2,2) becuase the human eyes prefers patterns (even when you cant really notice it)


and thats was kinda all of it

I do have som things to sat about my verision too, my verison looks more relaxed and i dont know if thats what you wanted, you looks badass as if shes ready to fight with that stance. I think she would look more ready for fight if you moved back her right leg or somthing.

also its a bit more feminime, i think thats bc i made her body smaller so she looks cuter

i dont know if the shading i did is fitting with what you goal is, i made the outlines a bit softer, but you maybe what the a bit harsher if its for a fighting game or somthing like that

but overall, its good idea behind the design, you just shoot yourself in the foot with the anatomy and then try to hide it with her dress.

and i really looking forward to see more of your stuff, like really, i hope i wasnt to harsh tho. but i really think you got somthing if you continue with your work