Katzenstrand's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[I uh]

With a bit more polish, this could be something from Kirby.
Maybe creature design is the thing for you, because this is quite nice.
Seeing this, I wouldn't be surprised if you could make some good disgusting monster art from hell.
Also, not centering it was a good decision. Keep it up.

[City's trip]

Nice, it reminds me of the first Mother game for some reason. Or the dinosaur game you can play on some Google applications.
There are a few pixels on the right side, is that part of the street? It doesn't look like it belongs there.

[Neyla]

Very cute, but the background is a bit too bland. There is also no shadow on the ground, which unnecessarily flattens the image.

Given that she is a cow girl, you have chosen a rather fitting bust size.
Very tasteful and quite tasty.

[Strange city]

This is your best one, yet!
I don't have anything to critique here. You could have added a "light circle" around the flame, like torches usually have in pixel art, but it looks really nice the way it is now!

Is she wearing thighhighs? Fashionable and sexy.

[Final stage]

Brave of you to try a POV that is so far away, but it turned out well. However:

The inscripture on the monument base looks off. It makes it look a bit cheap. You might want to try and arrange the symbols in a way that they come down in straight lines (but still in perspective). As well as slightly different values. You actually did that at the edge in the center, but didn't follow through with it.

The other big thing that immediately comes to mind is the sky. You show a lot of it, but it looks bland. If you add a little bit of darker colour to the top third of the sky with a slight curve, you could make it even more visibly clear how big this thing is.

Particles around the flames and the pyramid itself would look nice, too.

Having said all that, I think if you had animated it, it would have looked automatically better!

HeyPixel responds:

Well, If I didn't try I never learn. So even if it looks weird or not good, at least I have the experience to make a better one!

I actually didn't thought about that. It was 4 am. I was more focused on finish the draw because I really needed to sleep, but I couldn't let the draw without finish. Such stressful night. So at some point, I think I was autopilot.

And I agree, I could have animated it. Even if it was a simple animation of 9 frames. But there were a lot of things to animate and I wanted to go to sleep so badly. Still, yeah, I could try to do a better job. And I hope do that in my next drawing.

[Canvas practice!]

The head piece could have fit in the 32x32 one, but the addition of progressively more details turned out really nice.
You could use some particles to fill in the gaps left and right just to make it look a bit sparkly, especially on the 64x64 one.

Why is 16x16 not a perfect square?

HeyPixel responds:

Yeah. But I wanted to focus more on the character and make sure that everything looks good.

And about the 16x16... I think that piece doesn't like being perfect. It believes that mistakes are beautiful. What a joke!

[A refreshed fishing day]

Your rendering made it appear 3D in the thumbnail, very nice.

However, three things I want to critique:
The clouds look a bit too solid. Especially the bottom planes.
It doesn't look like sunlight is coming through, even though there seem to be only a few clouds to be floating around.
The fish on the Fox's Fishing Rod is beeing reeled in fresh, but there is no droplets in the air. You also can't tell where the fish came from on the water surface.

Overall a wholesome piece.

Balam-Forge responds:

Thanks for your coment dude.
Yeah i have some problems with the clouds and ligthing direction. Dont worry im working to fix that problem.

About the fish, you are totally right too. I missed that detail until you told me.
Thanks for alert me about that.

Dont worry im keep practicing to solve my mistakes. I feel grateful for your observations thank you so much.

[1-bit gif]

Actually looks like a game, impressive!
One thing that throws me off though is the HP and Level Counter. They are not the same size and not on the same height. Depending on the Max HP you could also use bars or dots in the same way The Legend of Zelda uses hearts to show health.

HeyPixel responds:

I kinda wanted to make it look like a little kid did it. Because the protagonist looks like a small girl. And usually kids tend to draw or do things without caring about size or height. They just want to have fun making things.

Yeah, I should have use some hearts. But for some reason I... Didn't? I don't know why, it fits very well.

Should I try Arina in 1-bit? Hmmm... That could be fun to try!

[Cat]

Nice tail movement!
Some blinking might make it look even more cute.

[16x16 Sword!]

This is a nice icon! Reminds me of A Link to the Past.
If you have every single frame at hand, you could use a gif creator online.
Or the Ugoira upload option on pixiv. You can set the time each frame is visible with it.

HeyPixel responds:

I always believe that in order to be good in pixel art you need to dominate 16x16 first. There's something in limit how many pixels you can use that makes you learn to adapt and understand when something looks because of one pixel