I got some feedback from my wife last night. She pointed out a few things that she noticed looked weird with the first pic, and she made some suggestions. I also communicated with  Xaqtly, and he asked me to make a couple of coloring changes.

Most notably:
-Lighter fur needed to be less blue, more white
-Right arm looked too thick
-Plushies were too small (they were tiny beanie baby size before)
-He had his paw in a fist but didn't really have a reason do to so

I think I've improved upon those suggestions. I'm running this by  Xaqtly before I start shading/highlighting.

I'm having so much fun with this!