This water and clouds suits the rest of the image a lot better, IMO. Very nice progress!! 

I still think it looks a tad too cartooney, though! It's not a bad thing at all if you were aiming for a cuter kind of look.
But I believe you're trying to convey actual death and menace, maybe related to the toxicity (metaphoric or not) of cities.

Maybe the skull needs to be less expressive and fleshy? I did a quick edit to illustrate:

Thank you for your help and for the reference, Mathias.
I've been processing your input, reading more, consulting other people's posts and experimenting with (what I felt) could lead me to more personally satisfying and fairly authentic results.
The palette is indeed tricky, but once you start to digest and incorporate its well documented restrictions and advantages, the learning process gets really a pleasing and addictive. Almost like solving a puzzle.

A. Answering to your question, I'm working with no other restrictions, except respecting the original tile sheet positions/quantities.
That alone is difficult enough for me, as it means I can't unify the perspective of tiles and it's driving me crazy. Some tiles end up representing multiple views. It's the case of walls. Due to the lack of perspective and continuous disposition of the brick blocks, I tend to perceive them viewed from above, but then there are windows, indicating it's actually a front view; on top of that there is the furniture suggesting perspective.
The pointy things are, indeed, supposed to be mountains! I don't like them, but I'm having a hard time conciliating the multiple views in order to convincingly portray them. If I addopt the "viewed from above" approach, it looks shallow, as if it was large pool on the ground. If I try to represent "full frontal" height, it works for the cliffs with invisible tops (the ones on the edge of the map), but looks really unconvincing for mountains on the middle of the screen.

The pointy scaily things were my attempt of creating something as symbolic as the brick walls - that would represent it in the logic of the game, without really replicating reality. It makes sense to me, but I'm not that good with abstractions when it comes to visual espatial description and scale.

B.To the next topic: I agree the purple tiles look dull. They are low contrasting if compared to the background tiles, thus pushing them back into the floor plane. I have tried to address address the issue, as you may see below.
The sand was just crap, like I've mentioned, and was completely redone. It look less like typical RPG sand, but the yellow was too prominent against all other colours, lighting it up and pushing it toward the viewer.

C. I think I'm searching for a balance between caricaturized and life-like (part of the "authenticity" I have so boldly mentioned before), but I just feel I'm managing to get mostly unoriginal and generic tiles. I can't blame it all on the palette, though. It's also due to my lack of experience experience, but the solution is keep thinking, pushing pixels around and coming back for more help/different points-of-view.


(I've also updated the tiles set on 1st post)

Not entirely sure if I like it, but it's starting to take shape, at least. Enough over-thinking sh** for today. 

Hey, it's quite nice!

My only critiques would be:
1. I think there's too much noise (stray single pixels and unpatterned dither) going on, though. It's as if everything is rugous or spongy.
My tip would be: create less lines/dots of colour (except when the crisp look is required!) and work with more defined and strategically placed areas of colour, dithering with moderation.

2. The calves of your character are too perpendicular to the ground, which makes him look unbalanced, as if he's sitting on something to hold the pose.
Try to crouching in front of a mirror. You'll see your knee will go forward and the calf will necessarily follow it, leaning forward.

This is obviously not good, but I can't find new approaches to try, so I've decided to ask for help.
I've looked at both water photos and game tiles. Then I've tried to come up with something of my own, but failed.

I'm using Ptoing's slightly lighter C64 table () and figured less contrasting colours would work better for ground tiles.
Water: 4 best results, 4 tiles each.

Sand: I need 2 types of sand... My best 2 attempts.

Anyone has ideas on how to improve them?

If you feel like taking a look at the rest of the tiles (for curiosity or to critique), please do: HERE.

Haha! I do that too (and laugh every time).
Every tried the "Hulk Hogan"? How about the "Katamari damacy" or the "vigilante"?

Funny stuff.