'Adoptables'. Oh, adoptables. I've been seeing those things for years in the signatures of forum-goers. Mostly dragons. Now I realize many of them aren't as good as they could've been.
Just like the first time I went to DeviantArt through the eyes of an Internet neophyte and saw downright masterpieces everywhere I looked, but that was five years ago.
First one, which I presume is some sort of pink hypnotoad, do you really need so many colors, or outlines, or
that much banding? Almost seems pillow shaded the way you're doing it. However, there does seem to be a light-source, but it's very inconsistent. Light seems to be coming from the top-left on the frog's back and head, but from the top on its very deformed leg and from the bottom on its elbow. On that note.. What is that thing supposed to be on its back? A tail? If it's supposed to be its other leg, at this perspective, it wouldn't be visible. Right now it looks like some strange growth. Same goes for the left eyelid. It's basically a frog, so references should be easy.
Second one looks like a Pokemon, but what's that got to do with it? Terrible, terrible banding... A lack of hue shifting on the palette, but looking over it, this goes for all of them. The right wing's perspective is really off, making it seem to be shaped differently than the left. Matter of fact the wings seem to be out of place with the body. Something about the tail bothers me but I'll just pass it off as curving to the left.
Third one also looks like a Pokemon.. I think it's Rapidash it reminds me of. It was a bit hard to recognize it as a unicorn, but I presume that's because the horn on its head is extremely close to the forum background color. I have a strong feeling you'll need to pull up reference for this--it seems you have only a vague idea of what a horse looks like. (
Too realistic?)
As for your mockup, there's still heaps of unneeded banding, so the palette could probably be lowered by at least a few colors. No idea, really--I'll have to go over the palette in-depth. The perspective is also really unmatched, namely, on the grassy fields and the dirt path. The flower gives it away. Actually, that tile you call "grass" seems rather noisy, or perhaps it's just me. To fix this problem you might want to show more strands of grass sticking upwards, and make the transition from dirt to grass softer.
