you "used" the style without having sufficient experience to use it well or fully understand why I do what I do.
Maybe to make it more illustrated, it's a bit like if I thought "hmm, I love how ptoing used a white dot in the top of his avatar. That's great style. I'm gonna do that for my pyramid picture".
By doing so, I'd have completely missed the fact that ptoing used a round-shaped cluster for the purpose of reinforcing the round shape and volume of his avatar. that's completely defeating the desire of a sharp edge that a pyramid should have
When studying someone else' art (which I usually do by trying to replicate what he did), take the time to ask yourself "why is he doing this. What is being represented/abstracted/simplified into pixels here ... and why does it stop working (in my or others' eyes) when I don't exactly do the same as what he does."
