Scribbly to get feedback of your work you need to post images of your work, there's no way to know what what you are doing and give you advice/feedback if there's nothing to see but only a description!
Welcome to the forum ;D
Definitely post some art! I can't think of any inherent reason why a messier style would be a problem, if it is more aesthetically pleasing then go for it. I could potentially see that it would be harder for other artists to match your work if the only technique you're using is "I don't quite finish it." That may not be an issue depending on the scale of the project but you say you have an animator already so I think it's worth discussing with them whether what you're doing really constitutes a technique/style that can be codified.
I would be asking myself what the disconnect is between the messier and cleaner styles and why one is coming off better, this kind of thing should be an active choice for the direction you want to take your game in rather than a concession because you can't achieve what you're setting out to do.
A lot of the focus on very clean pixels around pixel art communities is a bit of a layover from years past where many pixel artists were trying to train up to be able to work on big productions. In the indie gaming era there's a lot more room for forging your own path. Though I would suggest that learning and choosing to not do is better than not knowing how.
Post some stuff and maybe we can help you to figure it out ;)
Scribbly, upload your art to Imgur and post the link generated under the BBCode section, like this:
In that way you won't need to wait for approval of attached files, as a matter of fact, try to not use that feature in this forums, takes way too long.
Sorry for the inconvenience - the attachments system isn’t used too frequently here so mods sometimes overlook approving them. Imgur is a good image host to use. Thanks to the users in this thread who helped out. :)
Honestly, I think your art looks pretty cool regardless of the specific rendering style. Content is ultimately more important than rendering in terms of what causes your audience to respond to your artwork. However, the way you choose to render something can add to (or detract from) the overall experience of what you’re creating. I think you should choose your direction based both on what you enjoy doing the most and based on what kind of experience you want your audience to have when looking at your art.
Having some degree of messiness or imperfection can give an energetic look, or an unnerving look, or a cool look, and so on! Having everything be pixel perfect can give the impression that the artwork is drawn at a higher resolution and “hide” the artist’s hand to help with immersion, and you can have greater precision in the details of your characters. A mixture can get anything in-between or create a totally new feeling. There’s no one right answer or even one single effect because there’s so much you can create even in a small canvas. I do think that context can matter a lot, too. If you put your sprites in an environment that matches them then your vision can be a lot more cohesive.
Ultimately, I think you should try to develop a clear vision of what it is that you want, so that you can make informed stylistic choices and decide if feedback you get gets you closer to or further from your goals.
Scribbly, first of all, your artwork is great, so congratulations and keep the hard work.
From now I will talk from my experience, my vision of what pixel art is may be different from other people's vision, I respect that so feel free to take my advice if it work for you, If not, share your's with me!
To do the excersise I will borrow this piece of yours since it's easier to edit than the other character, pardon me If you don't like what I do with it.
I'm certainly not good at explaining stuff to other people but I hope this helps you at least a little bit, if you want to know anything specific feel free to ask!
Regards,
SeinRuhe