dat globe
The bottom line on the globe kind of seems to curve the wrong way though, i'd expect it to curve "towards" the center instead of away from it. Very very nice circles though, did you use one of those... Circle making thingies? I can't remember what they're called for the life of me. :v
Right. My sprite there is a bit larger than most other sprites used in the game, even. I'm even worse at large sprites, so I don't know why I said that.
Never mind. Ignore me.
naw dude naw don't feel bad
fortunately GUNIN saved it with a quoteIt's a nice sprite, actually! It is astonishingly hard to work with tiny sprites, due to the unique set of challenges that they pose, and 18x18 is really not an awful lot of room to cram an entire creature into (although it is doable, as you've proven). This is (probably partly) why people often end up doing the super-deformed style, so they can get in all the important bits (face and such). You did quite well in that small space; there are games with individual body part sprites much bigger than that! (funnily enough, i've been approached about making sprites for one such game, and suffice to say, the HEAD sprite is to be approximately 64x64 pixels)
Sure, your sprite might not be as small as those in various texture packs, but comparing yourself to others is never a fair comparison, even if you're on the favourable side. People have different art styles, to the point where the classic "apples and oranges" saying is applicable. It's only ever fair to compare your art to your past art, because in that case, the only variable is going to be your ability/the end result. Even then, constantly comparing yourself to your past self is just going to stress you out, so in general i'd advise against comparisons in general.
I'm actually going to go out on a limb and say that it's less technically demanding to make bigger sprites (at least up to a certain point), since you have all the room you need for details (provided that one knows what details to make, of course, which i often don't), you don't have to make compromises, and the square shape of the pixels doesn't matter nearly as much. This does come at the cost of an exponentially longer working time, though, so you just have to arm yourself with patience. :v