[WIP] Absolute first try at pixel art. Help! Floundering! :)

[LuckwithinFavor]

I think that looks awesome! 
Just make the mountains colors a little darker to make them seem as if they are in a distance

[zaphyr]

Thanks for keeping my motivation up
Okay, so here is the mountains darkened, which definately helps.  I added a little something else to fill the gap, too.

[LuckwithinFavor]

Looks Good 

The butterfly was a good filler, gives the eye something to focus on 

[zaphyr]

It was a bit wonky though, so that is fixed now.  And I made the sky a flat gradient because I didn't like the way it was at an angle.

So I guess the major remaining drawbacks are still lack of shadows, and gaudy colour scheme.  Any more crits much appreciated.

[LuckwithinFavor]

No problem 
Keep at it! You'll be an awesome Pixel Artist

[VictorR]

The leaves need more depth, so does the trunk. Add more shadows and brighter highlights. Looking good though!

[zaphyr]

Aha, yeah, it IS still to flat.  I added YET another green (that makes 8 now :/), and then twiddled the palette for the trunk, which i think I will probably redo.  I think my biggest mistake at the start was not being brave enough with my palette- everything was too clumped together giving that flat look, and now my colour usage has skyrocketed. Next time I will restrict myself to say, 16 colours and try Helm's suggestion on another thread of chromatically blending several lighter hues into the same darker hue to compress the palette better.

The leaves look a bit like a brain now , but at least they are more 3d...  I'd love to try adding foilage detail but I have no idea how to go about that convincingly, especially while retaining the overall shape of the clumps.  Maybe the current style works, or maybe it highlights my technical incompetence? What do people think?

[zaphyr]

And here is the trunk re-done.  Not 100% happy with it, but it seems to be an improvement overall.  Maybe I am done with it, but if anyone has any suggestions they'd like me to try, offer them!  Thanks all for salvaging my initial attempt into something I'm relatively happy with (I know it's not great, but it turned out ten times better than I thought it would ).