Scary forest

[YellowLime]

Good edits from everyone, but they all more or less give up on the fog which was the main challenge of this piece IMO.

I guess it can be done, but I believe muddiness is the polar opposite of pixel art in general

[Daimoth]

Good edits from everyone, but they all more or less give up on the fog which was the main challenge of this piece IMO.

You're right, and there will be further iterations. I'll work in wisps of fog or something; the fog spilling through the gate barely makes sense anyway. Perhaps some vague stuff behind the gate, obscured by mist.

Might rework the big branch, make more room for more in the background. And as the branch thins, light would refract around it and lighten it as it thins.

[Cyangmou]

Good edits from everyone, but they all more or less give up on the fog which was the main challenge of this piece IMO.

I guess it can be done, but I believe muddiness is the polar opposite of pixel art in general

fog can be done.
but because fog usually is just moist in the air and it's soft it needs more colors.
The main problem there will be to get the edge qualities right with just a small palette.

The more interesting challenge will be to get the overblending of the light and the cloudiness of the fog strands right.

Guess it can be done, but will be a lot of detail work.

Quick rough edit just to suggest the look:

[Daimoth]

• tree experimenting
• palette tweaks
• more colors
• various shading tweaks

The sky filler and fog are indeed still in the pipeline, but I really wasn't digging my old tree design. What do you think?

Oh, and it turns out a big part of my contrast problem was my windows theme. Overly dark pieces with poor contrast look fine when the rest of the screen's dark gray!

Comparison: