Mighty Jetters' Spriting Vortex

[Garamonde]

Ahahah, I guess it looks that way because the contrast is too high between the two shades? Should I try dulling it a little? As for the reference thing, I did use an image as a ref. for design but I was avoiding copying the stance except for the face. I was having a fair amount of trouble getting a good pose so I was just using that basic standing. I tried to AA the ears since I knew they were a bit jaggish but it seemed to make the jags stand out more. Should I redo the line art ( ) or see if I can fix this one (which I'm not quite sure how)?

EDIT: An update on Pichu:



Removed the black outline, managed to smooth out the ears (but I had to over-exaggerate the AA in order to do that), AA'd a few other areas, slightly edited the shading on the head and a few other tiny touch-ups.