@michael-rutherford I think the above point with less text applies here. The name of the palette is usually fine, but anything else is a bit excessive. In addition, there's just a bit too much going on here to be quickly useful. The point is to give someone taking a glance at your palette an idea of what can be done with it, rather than a full guide.

What I would do personally to reduce clutter: I think you could either increase the scaling of the sprites or make larger ones to occupy more screen real estate, and maybe leave just the gems. Then, give the name of the palette a bit of a fancier rendition. See Fantasy24 for an example of what I mean.

@max That show was sooo good. You really captured Odokawa's likeness, good stuff! Are you looking for any feedback?

@ash-wednesday Looks pretty great! I like the shifting you have in those ramps, and the saturated light tones. If I might give some CC on the palette example, the broken outline on the wings works better in some ramps than others. I think that's because in some it works as AA where the midtone is between the light tone and the background, in others it's a bit too dark. Do you know whether this will mostly be on a light background or a dark one?

@manuadvance Fantasy 24 looks nice, very warm. Not sure I'd be able to use all those browns and reds though.

My favorite general use palette, and the one I use the most often is Sweetie 16 by GrafxKid. I'm big into the aesthetic of fantasy consoles and limited palettes.

For higher color, illustrator-y work I often start with something general purpose like DB32 and use a subset, adding my own colors and tweaking them as I go.

@ckelsallpxls All good, I appreciate the feedback! I did purposely make some changes in terms of style away from the exact 80's/90's anime look and outfit just to see how I could make it my own. I like what you did with the figure though, she looks more balanced/grounded, and now I can't unsee the ribcage/arms hahaha.

I don't think I'll go back to this particular one, but I do plan on doing some more in a retro anime style, ideally some original pieces. I think I'll try getting the aesthetic nailed down a bit more with your advice, thanks!

@moth-dust Can see you captured Araki's style with the lineart well, it's definitely recognizable so good job! My first suggestion would be to experiment with some higher contrast, everything is pretty muted and it gives the impression of it being a bit flat (particularly the lips, skin, and head outline). You could look at some colored-in Araki illustrations, he goes ham with colors, don't be afraid to burn your eyes a bit.

Crisp view

CRT view

Reference

I think this one is probably the best piece I've done so far, at least from a character art perspective. I studied a lot of PC-98 references for style pointers, it's something I've always wanted to emulate personally while still keeping things cluster-y and modern.

I almost like the CRT view for this one better still, even though I didn't really make the art for that purpose. It really smooths out the edges to the point it looks like line-art, which fits with the style of that era.

As for things that could be improved, I think the arms are a little awkward. I consulted various references but none had the exact angle I was looking for. I'd love to give it a cityscape background but I need to do some studies first, so I just left the background flat to make her pop a bit more.

I will say, this style is extremely time consuming because I'm basically following a traditional workflow (sketch, refinement, line art, flat colors, shading). It takes a whole lot longer than my usual workflow of painting the colors on and maybe adding an outline after the fact. We'll see if I can figure out ways to speed things up.

@creepertron95 Example is pretty good overall, it's a nice take on showing the different ramps in shading that goes with the theme of the palette.

The first thing I see that could use a little work is that the second lightest "red" shade is very close to the darkest "orange" shade. I'd pick a distinctly more red hue for that color to make it still useful. Or just remove it to lower the overall color count.

For example, I could see you organizing this into something like three ramps of larger hue shifts: red to orange, green to blue, and purple to pink. Might help you to knock out some of the similar colors.

So I've found @Pixel_Dailies to be a really good way to improve and also to get some attention on posts when you're starting out.

However, I've also noticed some limitations to doing everything within a day for a new theme. You don't get a whole lot of experience putting in lots of details in a larger composition unless you have a ton of time to dedicate to it. It's also hard to come up with new characters/designs so I often do fan-art or something pretty simple.

For those who have or are doing them, what are some pros/cons of pixel dailies that you've found in your experience? Are there things you gained from making the shift to doing larger, long-term pieces? Is your solution to get better at doing things faster, or do both daily practice and long-term work?

P.S. This is the most complicated daily I've ever done and there's still definitely areas I could improve with time (the clustering on the clouds for example, it looks a little flat/lacking in detail).

@creepertron95 Do you have an image with just the colors of the palette? A bit easier to visualize it for me that way. Once you have one, just edit it and tack it onto the post.