Crazy Cat [WIP]

[Scribblette]

Here are your options:

1. Do what you're doing, and wonder why you're not making the progress you want. "One step forward, two steps back." Waste several years - LIKE I DID!  - like MANY other people here have done - thinking that pixel art is somehow completely INDEPENDENT of drawing (on whatever medium). Art is art*.

2. Listen to the wise people here. Listen to them speaking, gurbling, drowned beneath their blood, sweat and tears. Mostly tears. The best thing you can probably do is to draw this crazy cat - and practice pictures of real cats and cartoon cats - on paper so that people can see what you want it to look like, so they can help you translate your drawing into pixel art.

I don't know much, but I know art takes practice. Drawing from a reference is practice. Drawing something before pixelling it is practice - and planning. If you're getting the basics of art wrong, it'll make pixel art harder. Your black and white shading shows (to me, anyway) that you are getting the basics wrong. Look at Snowsoft's edit again (below), and see where the shadows are - perhaps you don't want a nose on your cat, but then where are the whiskers coming from?

vs

Pixel art without a reference, pixel art without planning, pixel art without practice = disappointment and wasted years with only the occasional 'lucky' pixel piece.

*Unless it's new age and a giant blank canvas of one colour.

[adcrusher524]

CommanderD,
    drawing with a pencil and paper doesn't seem like it would help you learn pixel art at all, but it does. A lot. I used to think "why would i draw on paper when i can do the same thing on my computer?" But my brother (he taught me alot of stuff) kept telling me pretty much the same thing people here are telling u, draw real things on paper. Use references. After i practiced drawing real things for a while, my pixel art became better.  If you learn to draw real things well, pixel art should come easier to you.

[miscdude]

...
The point of mentioning regular mediums in this topic is to try and let you know that you have to possess basic artistic skills before you can apply them in difficult mediums such as pixel art. Drawing on the computer and drawing on paper are only different in the sense that you (if you don't own a tablet) are using a mouse. This doesn't mean that principals such as constrast, proper shading, learning from life don't apply in pixel art, it just means that you use a different tool in a different setting to create them. If you look at a ball, shade it in pencil, and try to make a ball in pixel art, you don't simply forget what you learned about the shading of the ball because you're on a computer. You drew it from life, using it as a reference for learning, and can apply it in different mediums such as pixel art. art is art (as scribblette so well said), whether you're on a computer, drawing in pencil, painting, or even sculpting. You apply the same skills you learn everywhere in art. On a personal note, when saying to people who try to offer you help that you don't care about your art, it is essentially giving them a slap in the face for taking time out of their days to help you.