Welcome to the boards! It's always good to see new people taking an interest in pixel art. I did a small edit on your octo-slimy guy:


These sprites are a nice start (I especially like the squirrel), but they do have some problems. I did a quick check on the slime, for example, and it turns out that you use (in that sprite alone) 33 colours, some of which were so similar that when I tried to extract them, put them into the palette block  (the rectangle under the original sprite... dunno what you'd actually call it), I was only able to find, like, 20-ish of them, even at around 8x zoom. The sprite beside your original is a colour reduction, in which I shrunk the palette from the aforementioned 33 to 6, without any loss of detail. In the reduction, I used only colours that came from your original palette.

The sprite beside that is a (very minor) line edit, and a palette overhaul, which incorporates some basic hue shifting. I don't know the exact description, but basically hue shifting involves (wait for it)... shifting the hue of your colours, usually from one end of the spectrum to the other. In this case, the highlights lean towards yellow, while the shadows are more bluish. Since hue shifting generally helps make a piece more visually appealing, it's used pretty comonly (to the point where not doing so seems almost to be the exception, rather than the rule).

For all that, you've done quite a number of things very nicely. There is, for example, a bit of hue shifting going on in the hair of the red-shirt guy, and the fur of the squirrel; you've used almost no full-black outlines; and for the most part, these sprites are easily readable, so nice work on that front. Just get that colour count reduced, and you'll be well on your way

I have a bit of critique, mainly concerning the anatomy of the first piece (the guitar guy). I made an edit, which I hope you're cool with:



One major thing is that figure seems too stiff. It's strange, because your second piece doesn't seem to suffer from this so much. In fact,, despite the chibiness, I think the second piece is far more anatomically accurate (as far as such small pieces goes, anyway). I moved the legs and arm into a (hopefully) more natural, relaxed position. I think the arms, too, are a bit too short, as I lengthened them by a couple of pixels. Otherwise, I think the main change made was to the palette. I unified it a bit, reduced the colour count, upped the contrast, etc. Since you were leaning towards the whole "blue shadow" thing anyway, I went ahead and made it more prominent. Oh, and I straightened the guitar a bit.

I'm generally a fan of small pieces, and I like these quite a bit. I just think they need a bit of tweaking here and there, and they'll be pretty great. Good stuff.

This looks really good for the most part. It looks too... limited though. Like, you can pretty clearly see the shape of the original canvas (the square) , as the debris all disappears in hard lines around the edges. I dunno if that makes sense. In some spots, the debris cloud is forming 90 degree angles and it look unnatural. I'd suggest giving yourself a larger canvas, and letting the whole thing spread out more naturally.
(I'm... having a rough time understanding what I've written myself, so if it seems completely senseless let me know I'll try to elaborate)

Final update, unless anyone sees any glaring flaws. I just played with the anatomy on this one, possible messed it up, but I'm sick of looking at it, to be honest.

Thanks again, guys, for all the help.

Updated again. Did a lot of work based on Doppleganger's edit, and screwed with the whole chest-ribs area (which still bothers me, but I'm not sure how to fix it).

Doppleganger: Thanks so much for all the attention you've given this. The edit is fantastic, and I based most of the changes in the latest update on it. Not too sure what I did, aside from... blatantly copy you, so we'll leave it at that. The shrubs still need some work, but I think they're better than they were... I'll keep at it, anyway, and see where it takes me.

k0re: Thanks! Funny you should mention that, about the head, 'cause he does, essentially, have no chin. It was intentional.

pkmays: Thanks. I agree that there's been a lot of improvement, but I take no credit for it. It's due mainly to everybody's great crits, and doppleganger's amazing edits. I agree, too, about the green. When I changed it to blue, I lightened it too much and took away the sparkliness. It's back.

GNd: Thanks. I like blue, too.