I can't really offer anything in the way of critique, but I absolutely love the style and character of the original.
The highlight do seem to be overcooked, but for all I know they live on a planet with three suns

Did you hand pick the colors, or did you use an alpha/transparency tool to lighten and darken?

That's awesome! It's like the good and evil versions

So I got back to this little fellow this morning. I 'embiggened' the hand so it would be more 'cromulent' I think it stands out a bit more now. Though I think I still need to tweak it to get the perspective right. The thumb was a bitch.

Then I worked on making the face more interesting. Considering how bland the original was, this was a joy

I change the outline color of the skin to define the boundaries more, though it's probably too close to the same color as the robe outline.

The staff is now just placeholder colors while I optimize. I'm using 13 of 16 colors at the moment and will need to optimize a bit more.

From a newbie perspective I think I'm doing okay with the shading and highlights, but I'm sure you guys have suggestions. The shading around his feet is to indicate the bunching of the robes. I tried a highlight on top to show where the top of the bunching is but it looked weird.

Anyway, here's "Wizard Revisted"



Just tried another variation on the hand position. Hands are tough!