I played around with the colors and tried doing someting to the shading similar to st0ven, but I'm not sure anything actually improved (except the shading on the shirt, which is now more to my liking
)...
thewexxl0rz, what exactly do you mean with "fuzzy edges everywhere"? Do you mean, in the hair? Do you mean the actual edge of the sprite (between hair and background)? Do you mean the anti-alias? I'm not sure what you want to know... If you mean the edges of the hair, I want to give the impression of curly hair and this seemed a good way. I don't see anything wrong really...
(haven't really paid much attention to the hair since previous iteration though).
st0ven, nice edit! No worries, it's absolutely not useless, because it's different which means I can learn from this. I like the dimmed colors idea, but it looks like you removed the ambient light by strengthening the contrast. It's not what I want for the final image, but it's great as a learning tool, so thanks! Is there any specific reason for the "reddish" and "greenish" hues of two of the colors in the skin ramp? Are they to imply a second light source? I'm asking because I'm not an artist...
About your tips, I'm willing to start over using a more proper methodology, after all I'm here to learn and not to produce sprites quickly. So I might just do that, just to compare.