Originality was never in my scope of critique, technical merit mostly, was. In your case you're very good, but I don't see you becoming any better until you break out -at least momentarily- from the uniform-lit, static dress-up quasi-anime sprite deal. Just to try different things, stylized lighting, mechanical design, a tileset, a foresty scene, something. You'll get a lot better once you get to texture things you don't normally do, in lightining conditions you don't normally do, generally doing things you might not normally do.
I know that that comment can be abit of a hard one to take.. hard to make use of, and almost stab at, it may seem. but do seriously consider it. I recieved a very similar comment - that all my pics i made were same easy style and were all too similar. in order to get anybetter i had to drop that. took me awhile to accept it, and now i do see it too. I have no reached a much further level in my capabilities than what my older style was.
So what i guess im trying to say is.. yes i understand you like using dolls and such, but if you want to become better you should try new, harder things. Things out of the norm that will push your skills. Right now its not all that challenging at all, its the same style, same techniques, similar outputs. Its becoming more grunt work than actual pixeling (I can relate). But Helm is right, that once you start out on new things, new techniques, it will improve you overall. If you then wish to return to the dolls after this, you will still notice a change in how you colour dolls.
