It's not a matter of palette restrictions, so much as it is a lack of palette control.

Take a look at my avatar. Each color in that image is used with a specific intent, even if it's only used in one part of the image (see: the grey pixels around the eyes). I didn’t have any sort of color restrictions to match; I could’ve used as many colors as I wanted on that sprite. But I intentionally chose to use as few colors as possible—it’s part of the pixel art “aesthetic”, at least as far as I’m concerned.

Pixel art is a form of minimalist art: you use as little space and as few colors as possible to create a piece. User rhlstudios posted an excellent image yesterday that proves the point:



Zoom in on that image and examine both the color usage and the pixel placement. Every one of the 35 colors in that image has a purpose. Every pixel has a reason for being exactly where it is.

Your pieces have an excellent shape and feel to them, but they appear to lack a cohesive palette. You used a specific color for what amounts to no reason instead of looking for a color already in your image. That sort of “easy fix” says a lot about your ability to create and properly use a cohesive color palette. Your PO-2 Biplane image is a perfect example of what I mean, too. PJ’s specs tool says that image has 83 colors in it: 77 actual colors, the transparent background, and five different transparent pixels somewhere in the image. You could easily eliminate those five transparent pixels, then drop about half those colors, and still end up with an image that looks just as good as the one you posted. You don’t need twenty different shades of green where five will work.

Before you think I’m only running you down, I do think your work shows promise. You have an eye for shape and shading, and with a little extra work, you could definitely improve in terms of making everything more readable (the treads on your Hero Tank image come to mind here). I think I even upvoted your stuff when it was in the Queue, too, and I don’t do that unless I think a piece belongs in the PJ gallery. But to make it as a pixel artist—and to live up to the standards set by PJ’s best artists/works—you’ll need to learn some color control.

Go back to your images and count how many colors you used. (The PJ specs tool can help with that.) Create a palette that uses all of the non-transparent colors, then figure out how many of those colors are necessary and how many of them can be “merged” into a closer color. How many of those twenty shades of green does your work need? Why do the caps on the biplane pilots need four different shades of brown? Question every decision you make when it comes to color—and above all else, keep this question lodged in the back of your head: “How can I do more with less?”

That's an easy enough fix, I just didn't have a limited (controlled) palette in mind when I set out to make 'cool looking sprites' for the game.

Everyone who has played it immediately said how nice the art was so I wanted to come here and share it.

Thanks for the responses, it's easy enough to have a controlled palette in Photoshop. What is a good rule for maximum colors in a sprite?

No feelings hurt at all, it's just a technical issue you guys brought up I didn't consider before.

I've never really drawn pixel art before except 8bit stuff here and there in Pixaki on my iPad (using very minimal color palette) because I was trying to keep it looking NES style.

For these sprites I just went ape.

Check out the game and let me know what you think of them animated atleast. Future submissions will be color controlled.

I already converted the Stuka to 26 colors from almost 100. But since it wasn't how I drew it from the start and I don't like conversions/photoshop tricks for pixels I'll hold off on resubmitting them.

For your future work, try to stay in the mindset of reusing colours. For example, on your helicopter, you had some yellow markings in two different areas, but used different yellow colours for them instead of reusing yellows from one marking on the other marking. Try to think, "do I already have a colour in this art I can reuse for this new thing?" before you pick a new colour.

Check out the 'sticky reads' link in my sig and review the pinned posts. cure's 'the pixelart thread' is great but the 'colors: I don't get it' should have lots of new things to discover. n00btorials too :p