Dang it! 33 colors, Im only suposed to have 32! Oh well I'm in a good mood (LEVEL 2!!!!) so I will just fix it.
Great improvement! Now please clean all the jaggies in the linework!
What's the reason for the dark belly outline?
Color count: you're supposed to keep the count as you work ;)
Here's a nice little tool for checks.
I just fixed it, hope it's alright. Plus, how do you count colors? Is it a type of program?
Thank you so much for the help I will use this to the best of my ability.
Better! Yet some way to go =)
Here's a sloppy edit, trying to address some issues. I (tried to) give it a more consistent shading, using the shadows as a clue to a top/back light source; fixed shadow perspective; changed the colors toward a more integrated palette instead of 4 separate ramps (cremes, purples, yellows, greens).
Removed most dithering: glossy surfaces (nose ring and horn tips) need absolutely none; grass can be hinted at by taking advantage of shadow transitions; a fur texture could be nice but is beyond my present skillz ;)
Just did a quick edit, what do you think, I actually preffer it this way thanks for the advice.
Most or all ;)
The best dithering is usually no dithering. If you're going to use it, make sure you know why.
It has 2 main uses: softening color transitions mostly works with very close colors in large palettes (example: Jaeden), and made sense at the time of CRT monitors. Or, it's used to convey a texture. In both cases it is difficult to achieve a nice effect, instead it often ends up as a harsh eye-sore.
In your piece, the palette is too small for the transition effect. A little controlled texturing might be useful as in the grass, but again, better none than bad! It's much more important to strive to achieve the cleanest possible pixels (mostly line work) first, no amount of advanced effects like dithering will hide structure flaws.
Also, thanks for the favs ;)
Thanks for the advice. Where would I need to fix the dithering, or do you mean all of it?
I was going to say, it's not the tools used but the banding that jumps out for me XD Make sure that in the clouds especially, the colours don't line up with each when you transition, so you've started with a line of darkest purple, when you add the lighter ones, don't have them all end at the same point, have them at least 1px short or longer.
It's a very nice response to the challenge though, with improvement I think it could do well c:
Banding alert!
I like what you saw there. It could use some improving though ;)
Besides banding, there's too much/uncontrolled dithering and AA, and very jaggy line work. The bull's belly doesn't look connected.
Also the palette is more like 4 separate color ramps than an integrated job.
You have 4 more days, make good use of them!
Tho I didn't win thank you for all the help, it really changed my approach at pixel art.!