what I love about this piece- Not many pixel artists are going for really artsy or deep pieces in here. Most focus on skills and technique. This is wonderfully creepy.
What's not working- AA of course
As you'll read in the orange text, your palette could use a better AA color for the cream yellow. Maybe an orangeish color that is somewhat red that can still be used for the iris but not so red that it doesnt work well as AA. AA that is too visible can break the effect of smoothing.
sorry that the actual demonstration of AA is not as good as it could be. im having problems with my eyes so i cant really see what im doing. eye need some eye drops