Not exactly sure what sort of style you are going for, but it's probably always best to, rather than soft, fuzzy coins, have shiny coins....you can do this by adding highlights...which will also help you with your contrast issues.

Just a quick edit/fiddling with colors--study it, it might help:


Good luck!   

Thanks

I honestly don't know how to explain the style better... I guess I'd just say that the style I had was the style I was going for, but now I'd like to go for the style of that sprite I showed.

Nice edit. Your edit added a lot of depth and looks great. I don't know if I'd use the same colors you did though, but that's minor to the shading.

Thanks, I'd really appreciate that.

and as for that look. The star and this were the closest i got.



This is supposed to have peeling paint and I guess the star was too. I'd also put moss on the door and tree etc if I could manage it.

Thanks a lot everyone .

Pkmays, thanks for spending so much time and effort to show me what you did. I almost think the colors might be too saturated for what I was going for, but I definitely see what you mean, and I really like what you did with shading (especially in the grass and the added wood grain). Sorry about the retinal burning magenta. I just use that as my final transparent color because I know that I'll never use it . I'm glad you pointed out the blue in shadow thing, because I keep hearing that but never use it. I think I'll start. Oh, and about having too many similar shades, I actually  turn off antialiasing in Photoshop because it just looks so cheesy when you use it, so that's all my fault. And if you do want to have a go at anything else, that would be really cool.

Blackbelt dude... that's an awesome link! And the style. I guess I should've mentioned it before, but it's children's book and Yoshi's Island that I was going for, but I've gotta say that I really, really like the style of the guy on the left in this picture that I found yesterday:

So I'd really like to go for that style. It fits mine in a lot of ways (like being pretty unsaturated and feeling weird) but it's a lot more refined.
It's interesting that you say I should just draw with a Wacom pad, because I actually scanned and traced some graphics, but didn't put them here because I didn't consider them pixel art enough.

Baccaman21, that's a really interesting thing to say and I think you really hit the nail on the head. But I'd still really like to hear any critique and see any edits to my work. I'll try to post more things as I go along.

oh, and does anyone have any advice for giving things a little grime? I know that's a weird question given the "cuteness" of the style, but it's really important to me and I just have no idea how to go about it.

Hey everyone. I look here every once in awhile because the art here is just so good. I hesitated to put my own sprites up here, though, because I know I'm not very skilled.

But then I saw what Doppelganger did in Camdog's post(http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?PHPSESSID=4added782200853ec08c502a4bffbbce&topic=5098.0) and I would really appreciate that amount of help, because I think I'm probably at a good level where I'll understand what you're talking about but have yet to evolve my pixel skill. Also, I didn't do 100% pixel art, so I'll let you know when I used some Photoshop techniques.

This is the main character (Tom)
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I used a little Photoshop for the wood grain.
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This is supposed to be a dirt background. I had a better one, but I can't find it. I used a pattern (that I made) in Photoshop.
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I definitely did not pixel every frame. I used the perspective tool in Photoshop.
 • A donut block.
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I'm probably proudest of this one. For some reason I spent an inordinate amount of time on it.
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This is probably my biggest non-pixel offense. I used some layer effects for the drop shadows. I drew them, but I used the multiply layer style. I also applied the pinstriping as a pattern so I wouldn't have to do every line by hand. It was just so big, but I know it somewhat suffered from my inability to give it the time it needed.
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This one was hard. I really wanted the graphical style to make everything look a little dirty. Paint chipping and grime and stuff, but I couldn't figure it out.
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Ignore the ultra flat grey ones. I don't know where the updated version of this tileset is.

Here's a link to the game as it stands currently, so you can see everything in action: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=320837. Made in Game Maker!

I'll post more as I find more, and I really would appreciate any comments, critique and especially giving examples like on the page that inspired me to post here. Just putting these up have made me think about how flat they look. I guess that's what I wanted at the time, but I know you guys do better practically in your sleep. Lend me your wisdom  .

Awesome work dude. I just wanted to let you know that I read your tutorials years ago, and they really helped me out when I first started making games. I read them again just because they were so good and it seemed liked you'd added some.

 Also, I totally know what you mean about red. I always thought it might have been my inexperience. Good to know red just doesn't work that way .