they don't really show much control of the medium. lots of jaggies, poor contrast, inconsistent lighting, lack of AA, uneven fonts, unreferenced anatomy, randomly varying line thickness, etc. I'd recommend reading the stickied tutorial in the resources/support forum as well as created a WIP thread for one of the pieces.

Pixeljoint has two distinct areas, the forums and the gallery.
The gallery is meant for works that you consider finished and expect no problem getting people's votes to get in.
The board called "WIP" is the right place if you expect comments to help you improve a piece.
The way the site is built, there's no bridge between the two, so it's up to you to write a thread, and then when you think the piece will be fine, submit the latest version to the gallery.

I've joined Pixel joint only recently (about a week ago)
And these rules are really making me want to leave, already.

I think the website/forum needs to be more newb friendly,

I don't think pixel art should be put on revision just out of blue like that, they should note the op why it's been put on revision, I bet any newby is clueless, especially if they're new to pixel art in general. I have been pixeling for about 5 years, and the rules don't make sense to me as I had no idea why my side scroller mockup was put under revision, since I didn't use any forbidden tool.

In my opinion if pixel art one posts is not professional, you should not just remove it and leave him without a explanation what exactly is wrong, it's not stated anywhere that they must post their WIP's in the forum section, and even if they do, a lot of the unprofessional WIP's get no reply.
Here's some examples of that: 1 2 3

And why does it matter to you if the user wants to have his unskilled pixel art in his gallery? Why does one not have freedom to post the quality they actually have?
Personally I value more something that one has made on their own than after 10 critiques and edits from a far more experienced artist.

You guys don't even reply to the WIPs, so what's the point in sending stuff back to revision other than to piss people off with your rules that aren't even stated somewhere visible?

They don't have to get into details, don't have to write massive texts about it.
But there could be a feature they could add that would be like when reporting somebody, you can just choose one of the options why you are reporting the person, same way they could choose one of options why they're putting the artwork into revision, just to give the op an idea why his pixel art has been removed, without having to come here and wait for a explanation from members who didn't have anything to do with getting the pixel art removed.

And I don't think the pixel should be removed from the gallery, it should just be removed from the newest pixel art and public queue but stay in the gallery so the op doesn't have to post it on the forum, where he'll get a critique if he is lucky enough.

And quality standard is not newb friendly.

I see that you are helping beginners, but I don't think confusing them with a system like this is smart,
First you post your piece in the gallery. and nowhere in the rules it doesn't say that unprofessional artwork is counted as WIP but still you get your artwork removed because it's unprofessional and counted as WIP.
That's when you get a message where it without a reason(?) doesn't explain why your piece was put into a revision, but instead it tells you to go and ask on the forum.
So when you come to ask on the forum, you get a explanation from members who had nothing to do with getting your pixel art put into revision. Anyway.. The members end up telling you to go post your piece to the WIP section of the forum so other members can comment it and give you critiques.
And there the beginner had to make 3 posts related to his pixel in 3 different parts/sections of the website/forum just to get to the 4th step where they actually post their piece for the 4th time into their gallery, and finally get it accepted.
It's all really confusing and time wasting, for both sides, people who are trying to help and people who are looking for help.







Edited by Stava - 03 May 2012 at 11:29am

I find this an extremely common question. Maybe the icon is send back for quality reason message should contain a link to a cool page that tells you what to do in a sophisticated, detailed way which will finally lead to the Tutorial and WIP forum?
I would be willing to help to write such a page..

Ditto BatTheMan !
I'm pretty new here and I find that this website system of posting is actually amazing cuz it makes me work twice harder.

Also do not ask friends if what you do is okay because they will mostly encourage you just cuz they want to be good for you.
Strangers will give you unprejudiced opinions and feedback that will really matter for your art. That's why we are all here :)

If you are not comfortable with such system you can get an account on deviantart and post there everything you want. There is a massive pixel art gallery too but it doesn't have such strong support as Pixel Joint has.

Post in forums here and try submitting to the gallery. Fight it!! It's not as easy as you think ;)