HOW do you guys work so fast?? It amazes me.

They can draw. Take a look at their websites. Being able to draw quickly and confidently is a boon to pixel art, or any art for that matter.

I also tried to avoid sel-out while refining the outline, though Im not 100% certain what constitutes to sel-out and what does not. (Do dark pixels at the outer edge of a horizontal portion in the outline lead to sel-out? What about a dark pixel on the inner edge?)

sel-out? That's a weird term. Well, whatever this sel-out thing is, it definitely sounds like you should avoid it!

Here's a quick and sloppy edit:



I removed most of the sel-out - those broken lines around the silhouette.

I also roughly filled in the feet some. They don't look nearly fleshy enough.

Hey! This is looking really nice for your early attempts at pixel art. You obviously have lots of inherit artistic talent!

I think your skills are already mature that you should start reading the Ramblethread, especially the part about clusters. If you do a sweep removing some of the bad clusters, this sprite will look that much better.

I think a lot of pixel artists here have a bit of OCD. I know I do...

But yeah, it sounds like you already know you are obsessing with individual pixel placement too much. It's just a matter of being conscious of it and moving on, even when you'd rather tweak pixels 'till your bones turn to dust.

Lachie, that exercise was hard for me to get thru the first time as well. Actually, I went to a special art school in high school, so a lot of the book was stuff i had already learned. Keep in mind the book is meant to also help people who can barely draw a stick figure. The latter parts of the book are pure gold.

Can't you like, set the themes up so they are user selectable? I still prefer this vanilla theme to the old one...