SO
the one on the left was a good two hours of so of me just floundering about, repainting, reworking, adding in new multiply / overlay layers
aaaand it looks like ass, as u can see

the one on the right is mmm roughtly an hour, and it's currently only 5 layers
(background colour, underpaint, sketch, overpaint, a full overlay layer for depth / colour adjustment)

DANG it's crazy seeing them side by side ahaha

the POINT here is that in a couple of years i've made a lot of improvement
the one on the left's colours are everywhere, there's no depth, the anatomy is piss poor, the fur is chunky and too cartoony for the style, the expression is vacant, half of the features are too flat, my brushwork is shoddy

and in the newer example my brushwork is more confident, i take less time to do something that looks way better, hair actually looks like hair, the facial anatomy looks way better, the shading is more precise and gives it a nice bit of life and depth

the point is that the one on the right is all the hard work i've put into improving