My first go at making a sprite...

[Sevenstitch]

If you really did place each of those pixels by hand, then i Applaud you, but it still suffers from severe AA (Anti-aliasing)
and a palette of way too many colors. You mean to say you consciously chose over 100 colors for that sprite?

Alright look at this

yours mine

Do you see the difference? My image has 5 colors, and conveys the same image as yours. My image has nearly no AA whatsoever, and still is what yours
is. This is just an example. It isn't perfect, but my point still stands.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm trying to help. I cannot stress enough that too much AA is bad, and AA created by brushes or effects are just as bad,
because it has no control, and adds tons of unneeded colors to your palette.