trying my hand at spriting.

Omg that folded paper icon is truly...iconic.
Look at the way the brackets enclose on the "IMG" of the image, as if personifying a frame within a frame. It's metaphorical of the man looking into man's soul through the lens of a soul's...man. Absolutely brilliant avant garde at its finest.

Sorry got carried away xD

Hm, I feel this would be better if all the colours maybe had a 1-2 colour palette, and you kept it very simple.
No AA on the background circle, no extra unncessary colours that shade very small areas of clothing, and unneeded details like the greys in the clouds.
Great idea though, personally would make the orange on the tree the focus and thus take up more of the canvas, but if it being small is symbolism, go for it.

Ayy.

It's pretty good, just try to keep it within a limited amount of colors, and refrain from using any vector or just any brush tool. Spriter's tend to create their own anti alias, using their own version of the color to be faded out. Your colors are also quite close and could use more contrast. Try to spread them out more in the color wheel just a tad bit.

This isn't the "maple" style so it's not actually needed, but the CNC could benefit you over the long run if you do continue pixel art.

Hold up, this is in the ART section..???