Thanks, but these aren't in-game visuals!! We'll improve our in-game pixel art for sure, but it won't be nearly as detailed as this. Maybe for something like the main menu screen, or backgrounds to a lesser extent.

That's totally true. The pallette could have been used more effectively. That's partly my fault, but time constraints were such that I didn't have much time at all to maximize the pallette.

I saw this sort of dithering in the sky some of the Metal Slug games. I thought since the piece was so big, people wouldn't notice it too much. Thanks! I really didn't expect to get all of this feedback in so little time! I'm liking pixeljoint more and more:)

The floating islands are made of dirt, just very dry and flat. The texture does look pretty strange, now that you mention it. Do you think it should be more irregular? Can you show some pictures for reference? I don't know exactly what was the thought process when I decided to go with that particular texture. Probably a necessity due to lack of time, and partly because of the in-game representation of the floating islands. The lightest shade on the skirt does look a little too light, I'll have to darken it a bit to smoothen the fabric. About the bag: I didn't want to put too much detail on it, because the focus of the painting should be the two characters looking at the technologically advanced ruins, and not  the ropes on the bag. While it is in the foreground, and things in the foreground generally should be more detailed, there is no reason for the eye to look specifically at the bag and the ropes, if that makes sense. They aren't the point of the piece. Thanks very much for the feedback, though! I really appreciate it :)

Crap, you're right! She's looking to the side. I'm guessing I drew her that way so to have at least some face showing on a character. I don't think I'll change that at this point. Just pretend that she's looking around.:)

Wow! I didn't expect such in-depth analysis on my first posted sprite:) Thank you so much for taking the time and writing all of that!

First of all, the reason the creature is called Icygross is because it reminded me of Metagross after I completed it, not the other way around, but that's not that important.

About the texture, yes, it doesn't look very icy. Our game implements specular maps that add reflectiveness to tiles, and create highlights on objects when hit by light. That's why there isn't a clear light source and highlights on the sprite. To be fair, I could have made the tiles semi-transparent, I didn't do that due to lack of time, mostly. We needed screenshots to show off on the kickstarter page, and we were running low on time and quantity of enemies, so I ended up pumping out as many enemy sprites as possible. This in my opinion was one of the better ones.

You're definitely right about the weight of the creature. It feels a little too mechanical and doesn't convey much weight at all. Lack of time is in part responsible for this, but also my general unfamiliarity with animation.

About the lightsources in the game: we had dynamic lights and shadows implemented for a while in the game, but the addition of Spritelamp was very recent. Personally I feel it resolves a lot of issues and answers many questions like "do I bake in a lightsource on my pixel art, or keep it flatter? Do we need outlines at all? Do I need to think about my sprite looking good in-game as it is, or as it may appear with lights implemented?" I'm working more with spritelamp lately, and figuring out the best way to create pixel art for Elysian Shadows, so it's practically certain that I'll have to redo all of my sprites and tiles either way.

Thanks again for the feedback! I'll definitely improve the look and animation of this enemy in the near future. :)

If you're interested in seeing me creating pixel art for ES and trying to figure out how to find the best style that will suit the game, you can subscribe to me on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSyamEaVNrAig7Hxa1kzizg