Trying to make a pixel beaver

Coming across @thomoclock.bsky.social's youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@renderbreakdown and specifically his video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-CMM0b4qaM about creating faithful pokemon style pixel art was a mix of intriguing and inspiring.

Using a 40x40 box and 4 colours to create such an enjoyable set of creatures was too interesting an idea to pass up attempting.

and that attempt ended up like this...

My first test above was a failure on 3 levels that make it such an incredibly ugly little bean. First the reference photo I used was this representing the American Beaver, the national animal of Canada.

So where did it go wrong? Many places due to my lack of skill but the main three that I saw going wrong was

1. used a 32x32 canvas instead of the 40x40 or even the 56x56 used in Gen I. This just made everything appear more squished and unclear.
2. Due to how I composed my layers I ended up with 5 colours and I didn't space saturation or hue in an effective way to be appealing.
3. My outlining was done haphazardly which compounded with the small canvas made things like the nose awful

This all comes together to create the chewed up gumball / tumor cell it ended up being.

I tried again with a 40x40 canvas and ended up with a derpy but far more cute looking little oblong beaver.