but that's been your faf avatar for a while now. why didn't you just update it?

I only uploaded that avatar yesterday. Or was it the evening before. Either way, that was a not quite finished version, but now it's all done.

Why did you invest so much time into drawing over a photo when you could have just done it from scratch? The shading of the body and the photo backdrop make the trace painfully obvious. What makes you think that this is up to FA's standards? You can't cheat with art and take lazy shortcuts. The head, tail, feet and hands really stand out from the rest of the image like fursuit parts because of how unrefined they are in comparison to the perfectly proportioned body.
The best I can do is giving you the advice to start drawing your bodies without tracing directly over a photo. Referencing is alright, but you will never improve by downright tracing.

I disagree. I think tracing can give rise to some understanding. I don't agree with the practice on ethical grounds; I mean tracing isn't exactly creating new work. But I wouldn't say it has no value. Besides, I think this is quite cleanly done, and, in regards to what you're saying about standards, this is much, much higher quality as a finished piece than most of FA's general submissions. Besides, it's a nice piece. I quite like it.

The reason is because I'm still learning to draw and finding humanoid forms a little difficult still, I always had trouble getting the shapes and proportions right. This gave me a chance to get a quick decent image done and to analyse the original picture very closely, helping me to understand how it works. :)
But you are right, it's far from perfect.

Quite a nice pose choice!

well yeah it counts, still mspaint ;3