Yes you've made some improvements.
The face reads much better now but you still have some contrast and readability issues due to the kind of overworked-looking shading on the shirt.
You need to go a little darker. I've had the same problem once but incorporating pure black into the picture helps preventing that, albeit it may be a crutch.
Now I'm not that much of an expert in that department but for the sake of readability, sometimes simpler is better.
That zelda and the skeleton have some balancing issues by the way. They both look like they would fall over backwards.
Oh and also don't use the background color in the sprites if they're supposed to stand on their own (e.g. no background).
It also further adds to readability problems if part of your characters blend into it.
