It's useless bgs that are frowned upon. Make it larger so the sprites don't touch the edges, add cast shadows, round corners... anything that makes it look purposeful!
Yeah, I had a white background, but someone told me to make the bg transparent in a past piece when I AA'd. I'll put the white background back up on it.
Agree: either don't AA the outlines if you keep the bg transparent, or add a bright bg.
Good stuff nevertheless.
What I great style, but I don't quite understand the outlines for each of the pieces, as if they were ripped from a white background.
Haha. Why is that?