Mirre... if I'm not mistaken... didn't you once put together another mermaid image which was critiqued on the board, and even made a feature?

From just a cursory glance, what catches my eye is the tail segment... it doesn't feel like it follows the same flow from the upper body.  It feels like there is this feminine figure, arching her back and thrusting her chest forward.. and then a tail half that just sticks out from that... it doesn't seem to flow in the same way as the upper body.  Maybe the hips could just out a little more and there could be a crease where the body tucks into the top of the tail?

I like the colours, the technical aspects seem fine so far... I think you could also, if it was you who posted that previous picture, take a few glances at some of the old critiques because they might still apply (hair, hips).  This is turning out nicely; If you are indeed the same person... I'm sure this will turn out great since the last one I remembered came out great after the critiques.

Sorry... it's a little graphic intensive...







I wanted to try and keep a bit of the black outlines that the original characters had... but give them my own twist.  For most of the sprites I went with a very dark coloured outline and antialiased a bit into it.  The first screenshot shows off a bit of Grass I was trying with the tiles.  I also included a screenshot of the first pic as the game originally appears.

The Bedobear thing was because the original game had this hideous character that looked almost identical to him... but white.... so I just threw him in.  It's a miracle I even know what it is... stupid internet.

Usually I am not a fan of double thick borders... but the game runs in a window and it suffers from another thing I hate... pixeled games running in a high res in a small window.  The original RPGMaker95 suffered from this... I hated the small tiles and high resolution.  When RPGMaker2000 came out and ran in a perspective that doubled the size of the pixels, it was much more aesthetically pleasing to me.  The sprites get the same effect... look at them unzoomed, then zoom in once to double them.  I find them much more appealing at twice the size.  Doubling the border KIND OF gave it a thicker look that looked OK at the smaller scale... so I tried it out.

Am I making any sense?

You're right, it is a petty argument of semantics, since we seem to agree on the nature of edits.  I just think that referring to edits as helpful advice rather than "correcting" something wrong helps make them more palatable for critique... who likes being told "you're wrong".

That does bring up another thing that I think could go a long way to help people give more effective critiques.  Pixelation has always been a terrific site for constructive criticism on artwork, something many art sites I have visited don't have.  A large part of this is the members who take the time to reply and give helpful suggestions and art advice.  However, I think a number of critiques forget to point out what the person is doing right.  It is much easier to point out what someone can work on... but takes work to point out what they are doing right.  The most beneficial part of positive criticism is not turning the artists away... Telling someone their piece needs to work on anatomy, scale, composition and shading are valid criticisms... but nobody likes to hear nothing but what they are doing wrong.  A little positive feedback makes a lot of difference, and I think sometimes it is missing in lengthy critiques.

Photoshop has all the tools needed to do pixel art... and then some.  The only reason I don't use it is because it is a memory hog and takes a while to start up... not what I need when I want to quick push a couple blocks.  The simple answer to overusing Photoshop's tools (and it's not just pixeling that can be abused by overuse of photoshop)... is to just not use anything other than 1px brushes with no aa and the fill tool.  Of course there are plenty of tools like selections, layers, colour correction... which, when used by a knowledgeable individual, can save time and still be pixel art.

Photoshop may be overkill, in terms of features needed for pixeling, but it has the tools you need and a good artists knows how to use the tools correctly.