I used to work a lot with RPG Maker 2003. I enjoy SNES style pixel art. My favorite activity is map making, which lead me to look into how tile sets in SNES games such as Seiken Densetsu 3 are made up.

A year ago I tried to draw a portrait of an anthro arctic wolf in manga style. I was influenced by Fire Emblem Monshou no Nazo's art style for portraits when I made this one.

I used this stock photo as a base: https://static5.depositphotos.com/1041666/501/i/450/depositphotos_5014036-stock-photo-arctic-wolf-in-winter.jpg
I resized it then drew over it. I mainly used it for the outline of the face. It also helped a lot with the ears.

There are three portraits in this set. The first one is the default one. The wolf has a scar above his nose and on its left eye. The second one adds a dark cloak. The third one is the first without scars.

This was my first attempt at serious pixel art. I had to redraw it multiple times till I was satisfied and also asked for some help on how to shade (I was shown examples and did everything myself.) It took about 24 hours.

I plan to draw human faces to in the future, but I'm not sure about my skills.

Could someone well-versed in pixel art tell me what I did well and what wrong? Any constructive criticism is appreicated.

Don't forget that what is "minimal" depends on what the tiles are. Some things just naturally need more tiles, or different kinds of tiles, so you won't have the same tile layout for different things. For example, you probably wouldn't need both diagonal and squared corners for terrain, but they could be useful for paved paths.

Since your game will probably have player-modified terrain, you'll probably need a tileset that can handle more weird situations than the diagonals-only one above. IIRC 16 tiles per required pair of terrains is the minimum that's procgen-friendly, which is similar to what you posted before - no isolated/narrow strips of terrains. In farming games, it's common for players to modify the terrain so a tileset where you can easily compute the proper tile for a given environment is probably more important than a minimal tileset.

Totally true and the main reason why I will slow down on art and focus on implementation and testing and then improving/polishing art. But your feedback has been invaluable so far. Thanks so much!

Now it looks a bit more obvious that the truck is lit from above but everything else is from above left... Even the shadows and motorbike suggest light direction.

Don't forget that what is "minimal" depends on what the tiles are. Some things just naturally need more tiles, or different kinds of tiles, so you won't have the same tile layout for different things. For example, you probably wouldn't need both diagonal and squared corners for terrain, but they could be useful for paved paths.

Since your game will probably have player-modified terrain, you'll probably need a tileset that can handle more weird situations than the diagonals-only one above. IIRC 16 tiles per required pair of terrains is the minimum that's procgen-friendly, which is similar to what you posted before - no isolated/narrow strips of terrains. In farming games, it's common for players to modify the terrain so a tileset where you can easily compute the proper tile for a given environment is probably more important than a minimal tileset.

I feel the new/alt rock is much better. Perhaps compromise by giving it an external outline, but no internal outlines?