I need to know why it is I wasted sixteen colors on this

[Luminous_Reaver]

Big Boss:

That's a bit much, isn't it?

This is just something I did while studying anatomy. (And it's not something that's supposed to show that I'm learning anything)
Which by the way isn't going well. I can't draw crap.

[philipptr]

I tried reducing the colours a bit, which caused a bit of detail-loss:

(13 colours including transparency)
Not a very good edit, but if you really want to keep the colour/hue details you can't really reduce the colours much.

[Terley]

got it down to 9 colours, its a very small image. you don't need too much detailing. just make the most of your colours and make sure its easy on the eyes.

[AdamAtomic]

IMO the 16 colors are all working here - both the edits don't change the actual detail much, but they do lose the great fleshtones that you've achieved.  I wouldn't beat yourself up over using the colors so long as you're really using them - you could probably cut 1 or 2 here and there but so far the edits are losing detail that I think is part of the strength of this piece.

[Doppleganger]

Got it down to 7 (including transparency). XD
I don't know why I decided to partake in this color reduction event but it sounded fun.

I think the whole purpose of reducing colors on pieces that are small is to give it more readability. And for the challenge and experience I suppose. Since the color reductions don't do all that much to increase readability I don't see it as vital to get your color count down. If for some reason you had to switch all of these colors around it'd be useful to have less colors to mess with. Anyways, the point is 16 colors is an acceptable level, a bit high maybe, but by no means detrimental or wasted.