Those two things were the first ones that came to my mind as well, wobbly gun and muzzle flash that splashes.
I think it's ok to leave the face a mystery at this resolution.
There are quite a few single pixels, ErekT combined them into a cluster on the leg. But there are still a few more, but not all of them look noisy.
Also, the hair on ErekT's edit look more like a leather cap due to how uniform it is and the clear separation from the face.