Ho there, Pixelation! I'm going to try to get serious about critique.
My initial reaction to the swamp mockup is confusion. The ground tiles are very busy and distracting. Some things, like the logs and the green rock (?) are half submerged, while others, like the trees and the person, are fully on top, making it look like they're walking on water. If the other elements are meant to be half
buried rather than submerged, well... That's not really how it reads, at least not to me, especially in the context of a swamp, which I think of more as water than mud.
Speaking of the logs. At first glance, they look inverted--like textured, log-shaped depressions in the ground. To me it looks like one of those 3D optical illusions where the image seems to 'pop' in and out if you stare at it long enough. But I may just be tired
Also, the trees seem really disjointed and somewhat inappropriate. I know leafy and evergreen trees can and do appear in swamps in real life, but of course the more typical appearance, the one most people have in their heads when they think "swamp", is that of dead, broken trees, like the one you have on the left. That's why they also think of rotting, half submerged logs--the artists formerly known as trees.
Lastly, the whole thing seems to lack cohesion. I'm sure you had a blank patch of ground tiles onto which you simply pasted various elements, and that's exactly what it looks like. I saw
a great post by Ben2theEdge that I think is very applicable.
SO, in conclusion, what I would do is:
- Simplify the ground tiles with fewer colors and less contrast.
- Decide once and or all if it's mud or shallow water, and redraw everything accordingly. Or have patches of mud and patches of water, I guess.
- Maybe revisit the shading on the submerged logs--I'm still not sure if it's just me being slightly nutty.
- Ditch the leafy (deciduous?) and evergreen (coniferous?) trees in favor of more typical dead trees.
- Think more in terms a full scene rather than individual elements.