helping judge a comic contest sounds awesome! Hope you're having fun with it BD :3
Yah, pixel art has its little issues when it comes down to it. the smaller the art, the harder it is to try and make things look like they make sense, especially when animating them (Which is why I tend to stay away from the 21 x 21 pixel range of things XD)
Honestly though, for me at least, I try not to spend more then an hour on any piece of art at any given time, just because I'm a work-a-holic and prefer to get things done (Please don't judge XD)
And thank you very much BD :3 means a lot!