Bare with me, I suck, but. All pixel artists start out as beginners and work their way up.

Note: Please do not attempt to spoon your eyes out after seeing this.

By the way, I use GraphicsGale Free Edition



you may have to zoom in on the page because I didn't make it big enough. And I don't know how :(

Hey man good start and your right everyone has to start somewhere. I'm fairly new to pixel art myslef but one thing I can say which helps in any piece of art your doing is reference.

in the future, trim down the canvas before posting it to the forum. it's fine to work on a huge canvas if you want, but annoying for critique.

kevink provides valuable advice (and a totally badass edit)

the nature of your problem is this: you don't know how to draw a turtle. you know how to draw a symbol of a turtle, but not a representation of the actual animal. it's clear you sat and thought "what does a turtle consist of?" and then drew the obvious components: a shell, 4 legs, a head and a tail. But you're not drawing them as they actually are, just as they exist as symbols in your mind. That shell is unlike a turtle shell, but the general shape is a symbolic reference to a shell. This is why using references is important- in order to draw a believable turtle, you first must know what a turtle looks like. And it's not enough to know the parts that make it up, but the actual shapes of those forms and how they relate to the other parts.

The name and the thing were 2 different drawings, i just forgot to make anew canvas for it.

What program did you use for your turtle?

You don't even really need layers or transparencies (especially transparencies) but they make things easier/faster.

i agree. GG is good but only because you can work faster IMO with the right click colour thing. transparencies are useless at that kinda res. their only useful if you want to trace a drawing at a high res.