1. The picture was only big because the pixels were twice the size.  The reasons for this is because you have to have hd graphics for an xna game but I wanted to make something low res.  I cut 1080x720 directly in half and create all art in this format.  The engine my programmer has made just upscales twice the size.

2. I agree I am very amateur when it comes to pixel art, I have been studying tons of tutorials and studying all the usual pixel art sites (pixeljoint) (various japanese blogs).  I also look at old video game sprites at spriters resource everyday to draw inspiration and try to figure out the construction of them.

3. The clouds were not scaled but was the product of an experiment of screwing around with a lot of options in photoshop.  I thought the outcoome was kind of cool looking but obviously not.  I dropped their design.  
Here is my 4th attempt at this scene, I tried going back and smoothing out a lot of the lines and come out with a more cohesive design.



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All in original size glory


SeanZ

Im trying guys, and StarRaven I'm checking out that site you linked and realize I could really use some dithering techniques used, I think that will be my next task!

Two crits:

The knocked back one kind of looks like to me like an evasive jump.  Sort of like its jumping back to dodge an incoming attack.  Not sure if I would see it differently if I saw the main character attacking it.  Perhaps less of a jump and more of it getting knocked back on the ground?  Not sure.

The other crit is with the death animation, I agree it looks much better the 2nd time around but I feel it does look a little watery to me, I think if you had it explode in bigger chunks it might look better, think jello.

Here after searching I found you some reference,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx2Bjedq7U8&feature=related

SeanZ

Ok this is some of the changes I made after Corinthian Baby's critique.  



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I redid the hills changed their color and shading, toned down the saturation and made them darker.  I also tried to make sure that the tree looked like its branches were platforms.  Changed the sky into a banded sky so it was authentic pixel art and not npa.  I didn't know how to go back and add aliasing like I said before so I decided to use a blur brush (don't kill me ><) at a very low intensity and softened up edges to make them look a bit smoother.  I also blurred the hills in the background to further push it away from the foreground.

VoidSkipper I will go back later tonight and see what I can do about that tree trunk.

Thanks everyone let me know what you think of the new changes.

SeanZ

So I am new here and new to pixel art.  This is my first serious project made completely out of pixel art.  I am currently in development of a XNA platformer game.  This is no representation of what the final product will look like but I would love crits on my pixel work, character design, color choices, etc.  I put this scene together using random sprites I have made thus far but before I continue any further I want to know how people interpret the style and look of the game. Give it to me guys I am eager to learn and fix things.



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Thanks so much

SeanZ