So I'm making a game called Washed Up, which is a water-physics based 2D game about sailing the seas, dodging hazards, fighting monsters, and searching for treasure.

The setting of the game is some sort of post-post-apocalyptic setting where apes, monkeys, and one canary are intelligent and rule in a pseudo-18th century world. There are some touches of rough steam-punk style tech mixed in.

So I decided to paint the cast of characters I was writing about, and I thought I'd get feedback on style and design. I've been doing pixel art for a while, but only just recently got my first gig. So I'm using what I've learned over time and what I'm learning from that gig to create the best art I can for this project.



So the style I paint in is kind of inspired by minimalist pixel art (like Sword and Sworcery and others). So the rules I have for character design include things like limiting the eye size to one or two pixels, the feet go straight down with no foot sticking out (even on large characters). And other things like that.

Once again, I'm new to take pixel art seriously, so constructive feedback on anything is appreciated.

(PS, I know it recommends a gray background for posting images. But many of the color schemes are designed to pop out on blues / teals because of the naval setting. So aside from the naval officer, I keep the use of blue to a minimum.)

I think there's too much busy texturing going on. For me. (I tend to be minimalistic, so take that with a grain of salt.)

Because all of the textures flat and busy from the front, there isn't really a sense of lighting, and so it almost feels like all of the duplicated trees are flat textured pieces of paper.

I'd tried to be more straightforward with where the light is coming from on the trees and reduce the overall business. On that note, I feel as a personal style thing that outlines - especially pure black outlines - should be reserved for important things, like interactive objects and physical platforms. Having every single background element outlined so starkly is distracting to me. But again, that's a style choice.

Love the colors! Keep it up.

Looks good! As far as colors go, I think maybe the background should be somewhat darker and maybe a little different from the tone of the chameleon. Also I think it looks better with shading to change color slightly instead of simply changing value. (Like the darker colors become more blue and lighter colors more yellow.)

You can find some resources online like these guys to see what I mean:



And other things like that. I'm no expert, but there's my two cents!

Thanks! I did the export and save thing you suggested. Hopefully he'll fix that in an update.

And yeah, I've actually been in contact with the guy behind Irkalla and wanted to redo a sprite of mine that had a similar style. So this is the result! The baggy pants and hair similarities are a coincidence, but aside from that is the style too obviously derivative?

EDIT: For the clothing, I was going for Harem pants and geta shoes, which is why they are so detailed. I couldn't think of another way to do that without them just looking like slippers or something. 

The top is a simple robe and the arms are meant to be bindings (as worn in sports / martial arts).