Another, cheaper, but less nice way to solve the problem is to go for the lowest common configuration.
Configure both your laptop and your CRT to sRGB.  You can probably even do this without using software,
by using the color menu on your screen settings, and resetting that to default or sRGB if that is indicated separately.
This will probably mean reducing the quality of colors on your CRT, but your laptop most likely will be able to handle it.
Most contemporary LCD screens are set by default to sRGB, so this will also help you ensure that your art will look the
same to most other computer users.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB

In my search for a good color palette, I decided to inspect the colors of the hair and skin in photographs of me an my wife. I was quite surprised by the results, so I'd like to her your ideas on this. (Perhaps, to clarify I should add that I am a very pale skinned European and my wife is Asian.) 

• The half tone of my skin is a desaturated and grayish hue of red orange (HSV around: 20 40 80) . When looking at the photograph, I would say my skin is pinkish or whiteish, but that shows that the camera reacts differently than the mind.
  
• Generally, my wife's skin is not more yellow as one would expect, but simply darker, that is, with a lower value (HSV around: 20 40 50 ).
  
• In normal light circumstances, shadows on the skin have a more orange/yellowish hue (around 25). This is different form what I read  before.
• My auburn hair is a very dark shade of pure red.
• My wife's black hair seems to be an extremely dark shade of orange/yellow.
• Lastly and most importantly: using "natural" colors from photographs does not work at all for pixel art, unless you are going for a very realistic style. In any more sketched or anime style, the natural colors look way too dark. I tested this on a rather good base from FrozenChild82 on deviantart, (not on my own crap) so I can't show it example here, but you guys can try it yourself on your own stuff (if you didn't do so before).
  The human brain seems to use some kind of extreme "jpeg" style compressing when seeing, and the colors of reality into a kind of symbolic colors that are different from reality. I think the brain especially brightens colors. Also, it seems that contrasts are highly simplified in our brain.  Hue also seems to be somewhat unreliable, and tied to prejudices in the brain.

So I guess my conclusion would be to use photographs only for guessing the hue. The saturation and value should be set to match mental expectations. What your idea about this all?

Thanks for the advice, Lackey-sensei! I'm impressed by your correction, just a few tweaks make that sprite look a lot better already.

You're very right on about the colors. From now on, I'll avoids fully saturated colors, except maybe for special effects such as "magic".

Also, I noticed that in your correction, the shape of the head is much better, less round, the ears are smaller, and the chin is shadowed, not outlined. I was struggling with that chin and the position and size of the mouth, as it was touching the outline, or at least seemed to do so. But with a shadowed chin, the mouth also comes out much better.

The reason the elbows were sticking out was because I had trouble in defining the arms and shoulders. I used thin wrists because I thought they looked better. But then I found that the arms would stick to the torso too much, so I had the elbows stick out a bit to suggest "wideness".  But your solution is much better, making the shoulders more square and turning the lines of his shirt towards the torso, and also widening the wrists a bit, makes the arms a lot better defined.

Oh yeah, and , of course, the waist shouldn't be a straight line. Heh, how come I didn't d see all those details before?  Anyway, I'd hate to steal your correction as it is so much better than my attempt, so I'll scrap this sprite and redo it, keeping your advice in mind.

Hi, first submission here. I'm a good programmer but less good an artist.
This is 20x40 Sprite set for the main character of my future action RPG.
I am well aware that these sprites are lacklustre, I want to go for a sort of simple / anime style for my game,
basically something that looks "good enough" to be playable and enjoyable, since I also have to put my time in actually programming the game.

Anyway, C&C please. Should I carry on, or should I look for someone to help me with the artwork in stead?

Also, I need tips on how to construct a nice general palette, that has a cheerful feel to it .
I'm currently using a calculated "evenly spread" 300 color palette (based upon HSL) with many straight ramps. :p I'd like to reduce it to +-64 colors.