the best way to understand that is to simply go around and check other's works. you'll soon learn to zoom a lot and check every single detail, and then you can take some ideas for your own works.

Well, the bigger the truck that hits me the more I can improve. That might even get my motto for future "Improve. One truck at a time."

So that explains why dithering was so popular in ye olde games. I'll bet they had quite big color restrictions back then. Well, I'll stay with never ever dithering rule for now.

I saw one tutorial about making lines in pixel art, I think I'll... pay closer attention to it.

That control stuff is still new concept for me so I'm still getting used to it, which is by no means trying to explain myself. It just means I have to work harder. For now quite hard thing for me is to keep in pixel restriction I try to give myself.

I think she is super nice, she just needs to clean up the V on her head (it looks like it was scaled using a tool) and the dithering is not so good - if you are using 36 colors , i am sure there is some waste in there - you can use some of it to add new colors to not need dithering.

wlecome, be prepared to be hit by a truck.

there's a lot of work to be done in this particular piece. starting for the lineart: unless specifically desinged purposed, you should always look for 1px wide line only for the reason of avoid jaggyness and overall better presentation(and if posible, use complete lines). then you should never use dithering. by never is never. why? because dithering should be reserved only when there is a specific color restriction and/or when you're looking for a texture in a rough suface. another important issue is the colors. you should be aware that the main idea in pixel art is control, both in how you place each pixel and what colors you use. knowing what colors one should use in each piece is a hard task and its only acomplished over time, but its all based on the idea of using less colors but with better results. instead of using a new color for every little bit of shading, use colors with more contrast and less random specs. shading is the same as in every other artform, so having a defined lightsource and stick to it is a must too. thats al small part of the therory in pixel art. there are plenty tutorials in the features section(i recomend specifically the one made by Gas13). but as usually, working on it will give you way more progress than just reading a guide. you can also post your works in the WIP section of the forums in order to have a better way to recieve feedback and such.

wasnt a big truck after all. more like a van.