Nice sprites Gnome. The tank is my favorite.
I was always curious but what does antialiasing do other than make games run poorly?
Anti Aliasing is just a fancy term we graphic designers use for "Making a picture look nice!"
Basically it's just coloring with specific shades that blend well and therefor look nice. Here's my palette for elves for example:
Most color palettes would consist of 1 mid tone, 2 highlights and 2 undertones for each color. I only use 1 highlight and 1 undertone for most of my sprites due to the very small size however.
I've heard some people say that gradients take allot of the work out of AA, but when working with small images there's one golden rule to remember:
Gradients are evil! With the rare exception of metallic objects, gradients usually make things look horrendously unrealistic. Example:
As apparent, the gradient has mutilated the mountain. :/
EDIT:
Wow, Hampster's link gives a great example of use. Where'd you find that?