Whether or not it's a good idea I've decided to open a parallel project to the 2011 Emote Mosaic Project:
It's the same scene but without the constraints of the Mosaic Project. This means you're free to do what you want with colours and you can create a more detailed pixel art scene for your piece.
Community Aspect
As with the other project each piece makes up one big picture so you'll have to continue on from your neighbours scene in order to make the final piece seamless. This means that you may need to communicate with your neighbours in order to make sure your pieces fit together.
This also means that you may need to wait until a piece has been added before you'll see what you have to continue on from, and it gives you the extra challenge of incorporating what's already present in neighbouring pieces into your design.
Rules The finished piece has to be 100% pixelart - no special brushes, special effects, blurs etc. You are free to use any colours you want but try to match your colours with the colours of the neighbouring pieces. You may have Up to TWO pieces. If you want to have more space communicate with the owner of your neighbouring piece to collaborate on an idea. The piece must be Static. Please save your image in png (preferable) or gif format. You must incorporate the lineart from the background into your piece - no editing or removing these lines. You must include at least one emoticon in your entry.
Be as creative as you can. The crazier the idea the more exciting the final result will be
There are 56 pieces so make sure you get the piece you want before it's taken
If you want to reserve a piece tell me which piece so I can update this list with your name. If someone has already claimed a piece I will ask for another option.
You can either download the whole deviation and then cut out the piece you want or, if you don't know how to do that, I can send you the piece in a note.