Okay.... some more work has gone into this. There is something bugging the crap out of me right now tho.
The balcony railings. Basically, they dont blend in with the building they are attached to. That is semi intentional, because they need to pop out as something that the player can jump on, but they are supposed to be part of the background image as well, and as of such dont really work. I also noticed that adding tuns of the cracked bricks in an area looks pretty awful, but I think the problem there is exactly that. Ill just use them more sparingly well I actually build levels.

So umm... any suggestions on the balcony? I know I need to lower the contrast between it and the rest of the building to make it blend in better, but I also need it to pop, and I have played around with lowered contrast, and it basically just ends up not looking like a possible foreground element. (meaning, it doesnt read as "Oh yeah, I could just jump up onto that and then jump off it to get over here," it reads as "that background image has one more bit of variation... oh hey now Im standing on it, whats up with that?")

Little bump. I finished one more sheet of tiles, and finally got around to combining them into a strip the game source can handle. This is them in-game, with no enemys or anything to distract. The foreground tiles could probably use some critiquing too, but bare in mind that they aren't actually the correct foreground tiles for this area (also, note, the buildings in this level are a test run, and probably wont exist in that exact configuration in the final level/game)
But umm... thats about what they should look like in game. That is a screenshot of the game running, the numbers in the top right corner are just debug text, and wont be there later, although there may or may not be a hud over there (Im kinda unsure on how I want to do the hud. I could do it up there, or in the bottom, or divided and in both like a fighter, or I could just opt too not use a hud at all and have health bars appear over the player when he takes damage and fade out of existing when he's not taking damage. Thats currently how health works for enemy's, and how the players powerup meter works. I could also just have whatever relevant text like combo's and exp, appear onscreen when needed, and float off it or fade out or something... just make the whole game mostly hudless but with relevant data being displayed as needed... Any thoughts on that would also be appreciated, actually...)
But yeah... thems some tiles, making some houses.
Sorry this took so long to update, I recently moved, got a new job teaching autistic children, and snagged a new (well, actually out of production hand made in the early 90's) Edwards Les Paul (Thats a ridiculously awesome guitar, for the laymen,) and my girlfriend got a long weekend, so I haven't really been workin on this much lately.

Your latest one is a VAST improvement .  (Thats right, I have three thumbs,  I dont make fun of your birth defects, so leave mine out of this.)
I really like the tiny one, its dead on. Both manage to look feminine without moving over into the sleazy department.
My critiques on the second are pretty basic, and shouldnt be to hard to fix.
1. The face could really do with some more shading, or a more muted skintone. I would honestly go with both, maybe shift the color a little bit further towards yellow and gray, and add some highlights (mind you, dont make it yellow and gray, just move in that direction a smidge from the color you have.)
2. The pose is a little bit awkward. I feel like maybe if you moved her stomach a little to the left it would do wonders on it, and Im kind of unclear if she is facing towards me, or to the right. The line between her right arm (well, my right, her left I guess) and the torso suggests she is facing to the right, along with her foot, but the rest of her pose and the proportions are dead on looking right at me. You could probably fix that a little with some well placed shadows, but really you want to work on the overall form, and make the furthest away points scaled down a tiny bit.
3. Her pony tail defies gravity. Im assuming that is a pony tail, although Im not 100% sure. If its hair flapping in the wind, it should be a little more exaggerated, and going up higher, otherwise, it needs some gravity applied to it. Right now, it looks kind of like she jelled it straight back, and thats a little confusing.
Otherwise, this is awesome. You have come really a long way on this in not a very long time, so my fourth thumb goes up to you  (dont ask.)

so umm, as a 24 year old man who has done a great deal of staring at tits (er, research, yes... research, thats what I was diong...) I think yours would benefit from some gravity. Boobs tend to hang down a little bit and form more of a teardrop shape, as opposed to just being flat at the top and bottom. Obviously you dont want to go overboard with it, or you will end up with sagging D cups, but give them some sort of downwards slope. Also, this is less a direct breast comment, but applies pretty well. Things closer to the viewer tend to be larger, your posture suggests (for the most part) that the backside of the characters are slightly closer to the viewer, but the features dont reflect this (the best example I can find, is in your previous female, this one --> where her nearest breast is actually smaller then the furthest.)
Anyhow, take this with a grain of salt, my pixel skills are sub-par at best, but I figured it could help out.

The first bit is a little tongue in cheek, and is basically philosophy for round eyes. One of the more common mistakes made in interpenetrating Taoist  and by proxy zen writings, comes from not catching the significance of the word 'Mu' and frequently leads to people either totally missing the point or using it to reinforce nihilist beliefs and/or general ego masturbation. That was also a direct quote from the principia discordia, as it seemed important. Mu, btw can be literally translated to no-thing, but rather then meaning literally that the answer to the question is nothing (generally done either too reinforce nihilism, or used to reinforce some sense of understanding of a deeper untranslatable meaning,) is actually a reference to the question itself holding no meaning or information.
The second part was actually literal truth. I did get an emotional reaction and impression from your work. If you WANT to take that to mean that art is purely in the eye and soul of the viewer, you could. If you want to take that to mean that someone unconsciously (or consciously at times,) puts a part of them self in everything the create, and that in itself makes it art, you could take that meaning away from it as well, however I wasnt actually making either statement, and was simply expressing my personal reaction to the piece.