Thanks for pointing out the "dither becomes noise", it's something i'm called on frequently but have a hard time noticing on my own work. I'll add more colors to smoothen the transitions, another 1-2 skin tones and 1-2 greens should do it, replacing the most glaring dithering. Thanks for the complement as well.

What games and system are these three from? They look interesting and I'd like to try and find some screens.

I'm gonna take a guess and say the first is a tileset from a specific level from Lemmings. The second is a spider-man animation i remember seeing in old VHS tapes as a company logo, it's probably a direct conversion to pixel work. And on the last one i see the Flashback main character spritesheet (profile view of dude with brown coat), at a reduced scale.

Of these, my favorite are the realistic portraits and the single scene landscapes, like the castle on a mountain, the smoking hut and the ice mountain, and the tilesheets with the cars and characters.

I don't think the darks are quite strong enough, but I like the less purple palette. Here's a very quick edit:

I like the edit, values are better and it's a good palette alternative, but it loses some of the vividness of the colors and a bit of readibility between foreground and background. I'll try to reach a midpoint.

The higher contrast is ok, but only on the additional darkness, not the brightness. Further, I DO like the first palette best. It's alien anyway, so why can't it have a strong bright colour?

Yeah!

True the highlights are too strong..
The purple is OK, but it seems a bit overused when compared to a lot of pixel and game art, whereas the subtle colours are more unusual and refreshing IMHO.

But i liek the purple! I agree it can be a bit overwhemling, it's a bright color and it's like 50% of the image. But how often do you see a pink/purple dragon, fer cryin out loud! I tried to smooth it out by moving away from it on the shadow colors.

I think the piece suffers a bit from single pixel semi-noise.

That's an issue that you mention often, and sometimes i see it and others i don't. I tend to do lots of single pixel detailing, and the current palette and color count could make it happen in a few areas, mostly due to lack of anti-alias in such areas (due to me trying not to add more colors; doing lighting requires adding lots of color mixing combinations, which end up being used only in small specific areas, but adding to the color count).
Here i don't think it's bothersome. If you have a suggestion for reducing the effect, i'd like to hear it.

It seems to me that the highlights on his head and back are a little too white, and could be toned down a bit. Also, his elbow looks a little out of place to me. It's a bit pointy and sharp compared to the rest of his body.

On the highlights, i went for a overexposed look, such as a strong light like the sun shining on a highly reflective surface such as scales. If i make it darker or less saturated, it no longer looks like such...
The elbow is for an edgy stylish curvy lizard shape Although i agree the use of this design element it should occur in other places, looks like it doesn't fit with the rest of the anatomy.


Before doing changes, i think i'll try not to look at it for some time (a day or so), to get a fresher look the next time. I'll limit it to palette tweaks. Thanks for the comments.

Great animation. Palette wise, i think it could use some slight changes: the black constrasts too much with the other colors, which have less contrast amongst them, leaving them washed out (this is most apparent on the head, and on the contrast between the dress and legs). I'd recommend either using a "subtler black", moving somewhat towards the rest of the palette (palette unification), or increase global contrast (though i think the first option is best).