That's a real shame, I'm sure you'd still be able to make money out of this though. Screw that Mike Dellow guy and move on.

- That's why I only work free for people I trust, and not the cheap low lives >.> , sorry you had to deal with this too = ( I've been involved in projects that willingly don't want to pay anyways... -

Thanks for all the kind words everyone! :)

I did happen to finally sell these graphics recently! Anyone who's interested can check out the details here.

 Did you ever manage to sell those?

This looks fantastic! I'm sorry you didn't get paid for it.

 Frenk much? This completely reminds me of some of his work from Flink. Thanks for the warning btw :D

Sorry to hear about Dellow, but its lovely to see such great work having flourished from this experience nonetheless. I'm really for breaking up the skyline with dithering or a gradient, it interrupts such a well laid out environment too much. Loving the characters and style, art to be proud of :)

I love this! The colour palette is phenominal!

Nice one! :) fave

I'm happy to say that I just got an e-mail from someone who found this posting and just asked for more information regarding how Mike Dellow ripped me and several artists off. It looks like there is at least one artist who he won't get to rip off. :)

As for the gradients, I'd say both are pretty effective... but I still much prefer a pixel approch.

Very good work. Always ask for half of the price before you start working, and never send final art without watermarks before u get paid... sad thing.

It's stunningly beutiful! Please let me know if you're willing to part with it for cheaper (indie budget here!) or a profit sharing deal :)
 

Again, very nice work. Love the rocks particularly

Thats really beautiful! And I'm sorry to hear that. Legal action?

 This is gorgeous!  Sorry to hear you got ripped off :(

My favourite pixel gradient option. I also like Mathias' and DB's. Hard to choose!

I love this piece.
I loathe the mellow fellow.

That's pretty good, DawnBringer. Good palette-compliant alternative.

Scanline-dither is nice if you don't wanna/can add any more colors...

Amiga games often used copperlists (colorful gradients produced by hardware) that in addition could be scanline-dithered and thus produce quite smooth backgrounds (or so I wanna remember) - so Mathias' example doesn't look so wrong to me...

very nice!

If it was an actual game, then I would prefer the smooth gradient.
But, since it's just Pixel Art, I would prefer the original.

Good job on this piece! ^__^
 

Nah, see the smoothness of the sky just bugs the hell out of me.  Looks too fake and too 'glossy'.

Ok, Carnivac made me do it!

Is that so bad?

Which does everyone prefer?

Having no hard color breaks spanning the width really lets the foreground take full precedence. I don't even think the grad is noticeable. It sits pretty well. Not overdone; a subtle enough implementation. And I simply sampled the colors already in the scene, so you could "say" it goes along width the palette. hehe . . .

Good sprites and strange sky in lines.

Sorry to hear that man.

You put way too much effort into this, only to have an outcome like that.

Great piece man. Awesome sprites.

I love the rocks in the very background. Pity that schmuck ripped you.

I love the name of the picture! :D  Why not just a few rows of  "scanline dither" to smoothen the skytransitions?

I think you could've broken the lower borders of the platforms. They are a little too sharp at the moment.

Couldn't disagree more with that, Mathias.  I loathe seeing overly smooth NPA gradient skys on otherwise clean, sharp well defined pixel art scenes like this. 

I actually have a pretty big hate for gradients. :P I feel like they're over used, and typically aren't used effectively even when the situation allows you to have one. I would rather think of a different method of fill if it meant avoiding the use of a gradient.

I had a plan to intigrate clouds into the sky that would have broken it up, and made a more interesting, but I totally forgot about that until you pointed out the sky, haha. It would be something similar to what's going on in the mountians, but more subtle.

I might just go back and add them now though.

Definitely post the animations. I wanna see 'em!

Fave is that lush leafy tree. Least-liked is the sky gradient. I bet you got an NPA gradient there in the real gfx, right? I would certainly test a full color grad there, if not. Arbitrary 24/7 pixel purism is lame. There's a happy co-existence between PA and CGA, at times.

nice sprites...

and I feel with ya there... happend to me too on some occasions.