Wizard :: Pixel Art Detail

Overall not a bad piece, but I think this could be majorly improved upon.

First off, your colours are way too saturated and generally lack contrast. Your reds, purples and yellows are downright blinding, and really don't seem very harmonious. Desaturate in your shadows especially, and really push the contrast on places like his cape.

Your lighting seems pretty inconsistent too. You have a mostly right hand light source, but then on his shoulder piece you have this big section of dark brown on the right side, which makes that piece of the character look front lit. I'm not digging the shading on his cape either - take a look at the way favric falls - a cape doesn't just form a convex curl around the side of the body, which is the way you've shaded it - a cape will hang down with long folds in the fabric. Get yourself a reference image.

And on a piece this small, lose the dithering, unless you need it to create a texture. Here, it doesn't look like you're blending colours, it just makes the piece look rough. I'd rather see you use a mid tone to blend your shading, even if it does up your colour count a bit.

I also find that his face is confusing and lacks definition. I honestly can't tell which direction he's supposed to be facing or if those red and black bits are supposed to be eyes or hair or what.

I'd suggest you make a thread in the WIP forum and continue to work on this a bit. You've got a good start here, and I think you can take this to a higher level than it is right now.