New artist here, first unique portrait

[SkyLion]

Hi all! I'm new here. This is my first post outside of the stickied rules/introduction thread.

I absolutely love pixel art, but have only just begun to learn how to make my own.

To begin learning, I've been practicing portraits of different faces. I've done several, now, while using other artists' work as a reference. I'd like to show and receive critique on the first portrait I've done without an artistic reference.

Thanks in advance!

[SlimEddie]

I am still a beginner so don't take my word for granted.

I like it overall, but ear is a tad flat and square
Eyes are also sort of cut out from the bottom
not sure where light comes from but nose could have some shadow on the side.
And lastly probably, I am not a huge fan of black pixels, I would rather use darker brown, but that's just me

I like it so far but I think it could be more complex considering detail in the hair

Added a few pixels myself just to illustrate my point

and this is my first attempt at making myself out of pixels from back in the day - community helped me a lot

[Decroded]

hello and welcome 

this looks really good.
i like the clean and simple style with solid forms

only form crit is body is too small for the head but maybe that's a style choice?

besides that its down to the detail level and i dont have time to edit atm.
there's some obvious jaggies e.g. jawline where u could use the hair colour for a touch of AA.
i also don't like the triangles on either side of the mouth, at this scale it doesn't read nicely so try some other clusters.

[SkyLion]

Thank you both for your feedback!

Based on it, I added another row of color beneath the eyes, added some darker pixels along the jawline, removed one pixel from the triangles on each corner of the mouth, tweaked the corners of the lips and teeth, reworked the ear, and added a bit more contour on the nose using shadow. As well, I moved the entire eyes-section (eyes, eyebrows, shadow) one pixel to the right.