Thanks for the feedback. And noted on Photobucket being bad.
You mentioned the color choice being important. I think that out of everything there is to master in pixel art, color might just be the toughest thing for me. Most of my game design experience has been drawing out the levels and characters on graph paper with pencil and then giving them to the artist/animator. When I'd sketch out a sprite, I'd say "this guys cloak should be a muted brown with red as an accent color" but I wasn't fine tuning color ramps. Now that I'm designing sprites start to finish in pixel art, I'm seeing just how much I took color for granted.
My issue is, I want to make a really dark game, but pixel art (IMO) works best with high contrast and bold colors. So I guess I need to figure out a way to convey "dark" atmosphere without actually having a dull palette of muddy, muted colors. I went to school for computer graphics but I was working mostly in vector art with a style more akin to Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid. I guess I need to just drop that mindset because, so far, I haven't been able to make bold black outlines and shading work with pixel art.
I have a lot of learning ahead of me and this is definitely not gonna be as easy as I thought it would be. Thanks again for the critique.