Up to 18 out of 64. I'm tempted to knock off and start doing recolours or swapping out hair and accessories, but there's something very zen about doing pixel-by-pixel redraws every time. On the other hand, you end up spending a nontrivial amount of time agonizing over whether or not adding another pixel to that guy's shorts will get across that they're not booty shorts, or just make it look like he's a very lucky little pixel man in booty shorts. Either way it speaks to the mindset of the artist, in a "perhaps you should have a lie down" way.

Also realized that black shoes don't show up on black BG and make them look like hovering amputees, so fixed them.

I actually did an animation of wheelchair dude, because it was shamefully easy, but the rest are going to be stuck standing around in their cafes and salons until I get up to 32, at least.

Half plus one! Also I made some talky/thinky bubbles, so they can demand the jade skull, fall into hopelessly doomed love, or disapprove of all the hamburgers you eat without having to actually talk. The bubbles are kind of obviously boxy, and can be busy (the supplemental love, money and anti indicators probably would work best as blinkers), but hey, first time and it's free.

Thanks! Using icedman's simple randoms helped a lot on that - They've got just enough going on to be a great kickstart. I have a pregenned hairstyle/colour, shirt colour, and maybe a suggestion of a skirt or pants, so I can just get to clicking the prescribed colours and once I've got a rough shape I can toss in accessories that don't show up in the original, or are maybe very obliquely implied by a couple of pixels. Aside from that it's all boredom and the GIMP.

I think for the second half I'll vary their height, to the extent that I can.  Perhaps do the last eight as children with the original icedman 12-pixel proportions.