Did you say first time? Are you an art student or artist of some other type or what? Because this is definitely not a noobs work.

There are two possibilities, one> you ripped it from somewhere

Two> You are really gifted, if thats the case I would love to see your work.

And hey dont take this personally, I am just surprised by the work quality for a person who says first time.

Thanks for replying everybody.
Sabata - I attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and majored in Media arts and Animation. My Website is www.tyreetoons.com. I've been doing a little freelance graphic design stuff and holding down a crappy day job. A friend urged me on to try and get a job doing something  I really like and I thought "why not games?" I'm really slow at 3D modeling so I thought that trying to get a job for one of the smaller companies doing mobile games might be an option. I worked on and off on these for a month and then I stumbled across this place and thought I'd see what people that do this kind of work all the time thought about them. My friends kept saying "looks cool", but they say that about everything I do.

Blad -
These really are my first attempts at this kind of art. There was a lot of trial and error until I got things to fit together. I almost quit until I found couple of tutorials that helped me solve my tiling problem.

Pixel_Outlaw -
Thanks for the constructive criticism - This is exactly what I was looking for. Sometimes when I get to working on a large piece, whatever the style I miss stuff like that.

M.E. -
Thanks for the kind words. The HUD stuff is definitely very rough. I have to say I hadn't put much thought into it at this point and will be doing some sketches to plan things out before I go back into photoshop.

And now for works in progress. Here's an earlier version of the dungeon. Note all the little jagged edges around the perimeter - I was one little pixel off and couldn't see it for the longest time.


 I'm not sure how shadows are done in these tile based game engines. For the sake of creating a complete looking picture I made  a copy of some of my floor and wall tiles in my dungeon and adjusted the colors until it registered as "shadow". I'm assuming that you can do some kind of "filter" in a game engine these days to create shadowed areas. Or not. That's why I joined up here - to try and learn about stuff like that.

Next is my last version of my dungeon tiles.


Here is an earlier version of my city with the library interior exposed.


This one was my first attempt and I have to admit I had pokemon running on my GBA and tried to mimic the bookshelves and information desk as a study. After I had some fun with that it sort of just kept expanding.

And here is the latest version of the tiles.


Again thanks everyone who posted a reply! Much appreciated.

Hey Cracked LCD,

How glad I am that you found this site and gave
me an opportunity to see your art.
There are a lot of different styles which shows me
that you attempt different things. Really COOL!

Especially the fairy tale pictures made me smile!
I think you will do well if you would join one of
the challenges.  Your humor has kind of a winning
element

Your ability to do different kind of things is your
strongest point I think, but there may be a risk
involved as well. Making a piece or a game requires
a bit of keeping a certain style. 

I am not an expert on how to become a succesful
professional artist. What I did read was that you
have to be able to produce sprites / backgrounds
and especially animations in a short time in a certain
style.
You could check out the Job Offerings forum on this
board and show your portfolio to the pay-related
threads. That will get you started on your freelance
work and if you have a nice hourly rate you
can quit your dayjob

Anyhow, I am glad you joined and hopefully we
will see more work from you!

Best regards from

M.E.

Some very impressive first pixels! Just goes to show how far you can get with prior non-pixel art experience.

I love the first scene! It reminds me of Earthbound.
I think the road tiles could use some work as they don't tile very well. Either make some more tiles to break up the monotony or make the tiling less noticable.