Removing or coloring the outlines would help the issue, but since this is your 'style' you want to refine, you should consider the pros/cons of each.
The first thing I'd suggest to consider is whether these are game sprites, and if they are, then you'll need to determine a way to keep them separate from the background 'style' they're put against. There are multiple ways of separating something from its background aside from just using outlines -- such as employing more vibrant saturation, value-intensity, reserving certain hues for objects/types, (GOOD) selout, etc. -- but that's all a matter of style-preference and what you find yourself to be more capable of over the long-haul. An additional method would be to think of adding a hue + saturation to your black outlines and making them a little less black. That would help to prevent the dull washed-out look that too much pure black/grey invoke in pixel art.
I would suggest practicing with good selout techniques and flat colors first rather than trying to salvage the outline. Once you get good at doing that sort of outline, it can be combined with the kind of outline you're using now, but rather than the outline eating into parts of your character's form (preventing you from using all the internal pixel space for details like in the area around the last guy's necklace), the outline would be useful for emphasizing the silohuette and also separating the character from a very dark background (that is, the color of the outline) where the selout would cover where the outline itself disappears and thus fails. If you don't consider this aspect, throwing your characters on a pure black background (especially if they were smaller) would make some parts appear to be floating outside of the body where the outlines cut into the colored form.
Hopefully you understand what I mean enough to understand why it's a good idea to practice selout techniques before the outline. Although it's natural to want to draw your character with a line, using flat colors to represent form is far more manageable in the longrun since the outline (when added later) can be modified to make the silhouette more clear, and the minimal use of it allows you to completely erase it and tweak, for example, the pose of the legs or other details without having to figure out how to redraw them with lines in a small area of space.
Aside from those suggestions, I think that's about all I can offer you. Your sprites work minimally with what you have now + the improvements I mentioned in my previous post, but I suggested these to help you take them that extra mile in the case that you want to improve your spriting abilities overall. Though there are still other techniques you might want to try, these skills cover a very broad spectrum of well-regarded sprite styles.