I love the detail of this piece. Some sketches don't need color and I personally like this piece just the way it is. Nice job.
I'd like to see more like this from you but don't let me influence you, just keep doing what you like doing. :)

Coloring is a real challenge for me and I've always prefered doing sketches, though when I offer trades/requests people usually expect it to be colored and so I try. I rarely do art for myself anymore. I really apreciate your feedback on this, thank you so much for your kind words!

There are a lot of artists out there that for some reason can do absolutely wonderful detailed sketches but just can't do the sketch justice with color. I'm sure there's many reasons for this but what?

When you did this sketch, how long did it take you compared to the time you spend coloring one of your more complex pics? I've noticed some that are able to do beautiful sketch work, sometimes get a bit anxious to finish the piece and start another and rush the coloring. I never was very good at sketching but put the pic together while doing the coloring(and that part I am very slow and methodical about). I account for this for the opposite reason, I am so anxious to get to the rendering, I don't have my heart in the sketch work. I also hate to do practice for the same reason so all my practice and experimentation is done during the real thing.

I looked through your gallery and you do wonderful sketches, your Dino concepts are wonderful and look like you put time and thought into them. Your color pencil pieces do look a little rushed. Try doing a few small pieces and take your time. layer colors, I rarely use a single color on any single spot. Sometimes 5 and 6 colors or layers deep. I got somewhat of a start by getting a book on color pencils but most improvement came from critique from art sites for artists who want to improve.
You really do great work, just slow down and try and please yourself and not everybody that wants free or cheap art. You can do that sometimes but work to improve and take the satisfaction from seeing yourself improve and not from people getting excited about getting a freebee.

Sorry about being long winded, but what I just talked about describes my 16 year olds problem, He can do great work when he works for himself and takes his time but his quality drops off when he does work for others.

You do nice badge work, that should be done fast. Did you do badge work on artist alley this year at AC? I put stuff in the art show there and if you set up on AA next year, I'd swing buy and commission you for one.

I think my major problem is that I never really enjoyed coloring so I never focused on trying to improve on it. Sketching never take me long yet when I sit down to color it takes twice as long and is still sub par at best. Your right that I need to take my time and layer my colors better.

As for me doing the freebies, I never really felt my art was worth much so I always just gave it out to people who asked for it. I'm gonna take your advice and focus on art for myself and work on improving after I get the few requests I offered out of the way.

I go to AC every year but have never sold art there. If your there next year you most certainly can get a badge from me. :)