Man, this is such a noob post, but I've been trying to search for an answer on these forums (and the rest of the internet) for about a week now.

Here's the deal. I've been working on a game called Driftwood for about a year now. We have a lot of programming and music finished, but I've been slouching in the graphics department. My main problem is that I just cannot nail a decent, limited color palette to use. For a while I was using Arne's 16 color palette because it was so simple, but Driftwood's graphics are more of a 16-bit Super Nintendo style and Arne's palette just doesn't lend itself too well to fairly large, detailed sprites.

I've also attempted to create my own palette based on his and others as well. No luck... I've always been good at drawing and I've been working with pixel art for about a year, but I've never been able to nail down a color palette that I can sort of base my game's graphics around. So, what usually ends up happening is that some sprites are too dark, others are too pastel, and if I attempt to find a happy medium, those colors may work well for one sprite, but they look out of place on another. I want something that feels earthy and organic, but everything I make ends up looking either too pastel or too... solid for lack of a better term. Like... It doesn't look natural. The colors just go from light to dark. Does that make sense?

I know this is all pretty hard to describe through words and I probably sound like a total noob, but I've tried figuring this out on my own. I can't be the only person who struggles with balancing color or shadows/midtones/highlights like this. Maybe I'm just a perfectionist. Either way, can anyone give me some tips, or point me towards something that could help me out?