My second real Pixel art piece using your tips!

[Alexanator28]

Hello everyone for a second time! If you guys remember I put up a piece a while ago and you guys critiqued it and gave me a lot of helpful advice. Because of that great experience, I would love if the community could critique my second real piece of pixel art.
 
I tried to work on the palette, keeping it in the dark blues with low saturation. I don't know about the background yet, I need some ideas for it.
Please tell me what you think of it!
-Alexanator28

[Kosvid]

The grass spoils the image`s readability. As the rope, it contrasts with the ambience too much. The tree is not that bad, but in the place where it splits into branches it is too flat so the branches seem to be situated in one plane. Add some shadows there.
That big grey things - are they headstones or just boulders? In addition, they lie on one line. Try moving the middle one a bit left and up.

[Alexanator28]

Now that I look at the grass again I do realize that it does that. Do you have way I could make it look more clear?

[astraldata]

Increase the brightness of the tree, as well as the contrast between the colors -- I almost couldn't make out what it was until I zoomed in.

The other thing that really stands out to me is that there doesn't appear to be any consistent light source -- the tree looks like it's lit from the sides or front, but the rocks don't appear to be lit from any angle in particular. The dithering also gives them a really odd texture too -- rocks are better represented in flat colors and planes unless they're made of gravel or small pebbles (like concrete.)

[Alexanator28]

Ok. So I tried to take Agent00x's advice with the tree shading and the 'boulders'. I decided to go back to just focusing on the foreground.
I think the grass looks ok when just seeing this, but not with the original background. I also added a monkey 

@Astraldata does the dithering work well in this case, with the statue? I really like the way dithering looks, but I don't really know when to use it yet.

[Manupix]

I really like the way dithering looks, but I don't really know when to use it yet.

Then don't, until you know!
Dithering is advanced, and not necessary most of the time.
Concentrate on the basics first: shading, volumes, colors.

The statue isn't very readable: does it have folded arms? Is the monkey sitting on its head? Is it a monkey statue? Does it have ears?

The tree looks odd too, the relative widths of trunk and branches don't look nice and the branchlets are short. The main branch should use more of the canvas on the right for a better composition.

Only when these issues are fixed and the image looks good as a whole, should you start thinking about refining techniques: AA, texturing, dithering. At this point, they only interfere with your workflow.

Your dithering now has many isolated pixels which stand out sharply and break the smoothness of the stone instead of enhancing it, as might have been your intention. Similarly, the tree texturing is more noise than bark.

[astraldata]

I do agree with pretty much everything Manupix suggested. That is, assuming you're really intending this as a composition and not just texture/lighitng practice (but even so, why not practice both simultaneously?)

Unless you told me it was a monkey stature, I wouldn't have guessed at all -- the big ears could have just been that of a cartoony big-eared person since nothing else in the body of the statue tells me anything specific that this is definitely a monkey.

Speaking of monkey, the little monkey you did there is very hard to see due to it lacking contrast so badly. At first I thought maybe it was some kind of knot in the rope or something. As suggested before, your contrast is MUCH too weak to indicate form in such a small space of pixels.

On the other hand, contrast between the grass and the statue is pretty decent. The tree's lighting is still too weak though, and as Manupix mentioned, the 'texture' is too randomly placed (there's no sense of a cylinder there on your trunk, nor in any of your branches -- just shade it as if it were a cylinder with that wood 'texture' and leave some areas completely black where the shadow takes over the darkest parts of the form.)

I do suggest not using dithering seriously until you get some practice in on it, so if this is truly a practice piece and not an actual composition, by all means go nuts and practice it until you 'get-it' while also being conscious that you really should be careful 'practicing' something in the wrong way because you only get good at doing it the wrong way.

Thus I suggest reading up on it and looking at examples of dithering that look great to you and studying them alongside your practice if you're really that intent on using it. With that said however, it usually just looks infinitely better to simply use another shade if you have it available. Don't dither just for the sake of saying you dithered.

[Alexanator28]

I am having more trouble than I thought I would on this piece! I tried to put the image to the basic cylinders to shade, as Manupix said, but I couldn't find a good way the statue looked like that.
As for the tree, I think I may have fixed the shading, but now how do I add texture? And how do I shade the statue now?

@Astraldata for the monkey, would I higher the contrast with hue, or with saturation? The statue wasn't really going for a monkey, but just a tribal statue thingy (mainly inspired by the jungle picture talking about blocking out pixel art pieces tutorial or something)

[Alexanator28]

I finally have something I can show you guys.

Is the shading still good with the statues? I think the farthest back ones may be off.

[Manupix]

Is the shading still good with the statues?

Sorry, but no 
You are not shading a volume according to a light source, you are applying a random texture.
I think you are referring to this piece by cure:


It may seem that the structure is not well defined, but it's the opposite: you can clearly make out the volumes of a sitting figure, the face protruding from a rectangle block. Cure has hidden or obscured some parts for our viewing pleasure but he had, and we all can have, a perfect idea of the shape of his statue, and from this shape he was able to derive shading.
This is what you need to do: build (draw) your statue(s) in some detail, maybe as a separate sketch, so you can decide what you will show of it and what you will obscure, for our viewing pleasure

A shading trick might help you: create everything in grayscale, and apply color later. It might help you with shading, volumes, contrast.

I think the farthest back ones may be off.

The sizes look off. The distances are not clear, but I see the 3rd one on a hill some 100s of meters distant, and the last one on distant mountains: so they are way bigger than the foreground one.
They are also not at all readable.

Composition: adding a landscape may somewhat hide the problems I mentioned earlier, but doesn't solve them.
Also the way the left mountain hugs the tree 'armpit' is not nice.

[Alexanator28]

I am just getting confused about the shading now. Could you maybe show an edit to the picture to tell me what you are talking about? I am just not getting any of this. I have done fairly well with shading in other mediums i.e. traditional paper and pencil as well as digital art. but I don't know what I am doing wrong here. I really thank you guys (particularly Manupix) for helping me get this going. I would have scratched the whole pixel art thing a while ago without this help and community.

[Manupix]

And I'm getting confused about what gets you confused!
The #1 problem is readability. I have no idea what these statues are, except there might be a face in the lower half of the foremost. Not even sure.
This is not specifically a shading issue, as far as I can see; you might have outline conflicts too, and bad workflow (premature detailing).

Outlines are often more of a hindrance than a help, esp inside outlines of small sprites. If there is indeed a face in the statue, its outlines conflict with shading, as is often the case. Cure does mix outlines and shading and masterfully disregards the potential problems, maybe this was misleading to you.
In a piece with no clear (black) outlines, 1-pixel lines may be used as shadows or highlights to mark grooves in stone, for instance. Some of cure's piece lines do that, others not obviously so. Again, this is advanced pixeling.

Here is a different example that might be easier for you to study. No outlines at all, only volume and shading.



Whatever you do, don't fill out space with random pixels (that's what the statues look like). Stay basic, like the tree, define everything. You'll detail and refine afterwards.

I'd do an edit, but not now, with only MSPaint on a laptop XD
If you're feeling more comfortable with pencil on paper, post drawings of these statues!

[Ryumaru]

Your latest edit is far better than your first image. This is one of few times where I will say: go larger. Unless you need it at that size for some reason, theres a lot that could be done if the canvas was around twice as big, and it still would not be too much work.

[Alexanator28]

Thank you Ryumaru, I can definitely see the improvement as well. And I think you are right about going larger, so I can work on readability.

--------- merged double post ---------
@Ryamaru
Do you know a simple way I can resize this image onto a twice as big background, preferably keeping the layers? I use Pyxel Edit and I want to use your advice.

Edit: I found out how, but it is getting really stressful. I have to re-draw everything  Maybe I will just stick to my normal resolution. and do a bigger one on my next piece.

[Ryumaru]

Yes, it can be tedious, only you decide if it's worth it to resize or not. Keep size in mind for the future so you don't run into the same problem. As for the piece currently, the grass near the tree is far too light, the colors you are using for the it in the background is fine for the foreground- perhaps you can add a shade that is a tad lighter.

[Manupix]

I'm not sure about resizing. As Ryu said: This is one of few times where I will say: go larger.

100x100 is 10,000 pixels, and that's a huge lot at beginner level. Remember you've got to control each and every one of them! 200x200 is 40,000: 4 times more 
Cure's piece is 200x124 'only'. You might add a bit of width or height if needed but I wouldn't double everything.

I'd rather stay at this scale but simplify and clarify your goal: what exactly do you want to do?
Shading practice?
A piece with specific items (tree + statue, landscape)?
Game assets?

I have to re-draw everything 

I know that doesn't sound appealing, but it's actually a good thing. Artists should not cringe over restarting a piece however complex. Work that got into the early versions is not lost, but trying to fix the unfixable would be a loss of time and energy.
Starting afresh on a sounder basis is economic

Define your goal and a reasonable size to operate.
Decide your general appealing composition.
Sketch items in this composition, roughly and clearly; begin shading according to a basic light source. At this point things don't need to be nice but they need to be readable. Post and get feedback. Rinse and repeat

[Alexanator28]

So what do I do from this point in the piece?
@Manupix Wow. That artist that you linked is crazy good! And he pretty much started from scratch many times.
@Ryu Yeah, I think I won't change the size this time, but I will definitely think about that in the future. I will do an edit on the grass color later today.