honestly, the worst part about this piece is the sprites. The background elements far outstrip them in terms of quality and style. Still, very good.

You're welcome! I'm no spriter so I don't have specific advice, but I think sprites should focus on the essentials and texturing isn't one of them. There are very few pixels in a sprite to cram all that information in. In this piece, they might be big enough to hint at some textures in a few places, but only after maximum readability of volumes is achieved (mostly by shading). Suggest instead of showing! Also focus on 'natural' pixel lines and angles.

You might go to the WIP forums (here and/or at pixelation) for more seasoned spriting advice ;)

thanks so much! Are you saying i should use a different texturing/shading technique on my characters than my bg?

Love the background; great colors.

The characters lack in readability though, texturing that looks great on bgs doesn't work so well on sprites. This is relevant to your other mockups as well.

 Love the concept, love the execution. Too bad you couldn't enter it!

 I thought kukulkan was iron man at first :P. Great pixel!