Congrats to the winners. There were a lot of good entries in the contest. While I do agree that 1 and 3 are a bit to similar imo, they won fair and square and they are great in their own ways. I only voted for one of them for a bit of variety. Also glad the floret suit made it in! I was torn between that one and the fish head, but again only voted for one of them as they are quite similar. (I think having the head changable would be great).
I think part of the problem with some of the more elaborate ones, such as the slime dress and dragon queen, is they are hard to translate to low pixel sprites. They were a bit too complicated and had a bit too much going on with them and it was hard to see them being translated well. I feel this way about the Capricorn one as well, the head is great but its difficult to see whats going on with the rest of it, imo. Having the clean already translated sprites seems to have helped a lot with the overall votes as all the winners have them included.
Anyhow I was super impressed with most of the contest and can't wait to see the new sets in game.
(My honorable mentions other than the ones already mentioned, and would love to see in game as well, are Golditale's, Swamp Horror, and TV head.)