Looking for commission advice & general art improvements!

[winter terrace]

Hello! I'm looking for advice on a few things on this post (since I don't want to clutter this forum with them all).

Firstly, I'm wondering what would be a good price for selling some animated pixel icons like this as I'm not sure if the price I have in mind is too much or too little. They'd be minor expression animations that come with a background along with be nonsymmetrical.

Secondly, is there anything I could improve on in these piece? I'm specifically curious as to things involving lighting/shading or texturing. (These pieces are 128x128 if that's helpful.)

And finally, unrelated to the art, what kind of sites are out there for keeping track of commissions? I've heard that Trello is one site, though I'm curious as to if there are any others out there, and how good they are (as I wanna know all the options before I make an account).

Advice to any of these would be much appreciated!

[cerulean breach]

Hi! I would love to help! Usually to keep track of comms people use this site called Trello ! It lets you make your own commission tracker spread and I've seen so many people use it to track their own as you can color code it and set up what the color codes mean from started/wip/lined/etc.!

For the art of this comm you are gonna sell I think it's good! I don't really think improvement is really needed as your art is wonderful and the comm art itself is very eye catching! I think the shading/lighting and texture looks very lovely!

What is the price you have in mind for these so I can most likely help with pricing ^U^?

[winter terrace]

I've heard of Trello, I just don't know how hard it is set up, or if there's any other better options. I do mean to look into it at some point though! Like I've seen the layout for Trello and it looks alright, even if it was not for a commission tracker.

And thank you the compliment! I do think it's pretty good as is, I just always tend to wonder if there's anything else I can do to improve it as I've seen some pretty insanely talented pixel artists out there that do a ton of detailing.

As far as prices go, I'm generally thinking around $15-18 for pricing since it does take me a good bit of time to do tweaking of the animation. Though then again, I'm just generally slow with animating since I've only recently gotten into it with the program I'm using, so that could probably get better with time.

[cerulean breach]

I personally think you should at least charge 20 about 20 since they are animated and take your time :3! I don’t think that would be too much because 15-18 seems to be underpricing your hard work!!!!

[thorn glacier]

I agree.

[winter terrace]

got it! I was considering 20 as well at some points, though I didn't know if that was on the side of being too much...
thank you both for the advice o/

[cerulean breach]

Mhm!!

[violet bobcat]

Firstly, 20 seems very reasonable for the quality of your work.
I don't know how much difference there is in your animation between pieces but from your art it shows that you are capable of both smooth and more "traditional" icon animation.

Im in no way able to give you any "improvements" as you put it, but i can say from the few years of game development i have under my belt, i felt a big change in my pixel art after studying dithering

The tweet that introduced me to the concept:
(https://x.com/Sadface_RL/status/1457815053730725893?t=CLQEiRD7HHOsikITTV4iWw&s=19)

It's of course not a must and I'm sure you can keep working with the style you currently use without much problems.

Anyhow. Love how expressive they are. Have a nice day 💪

TryHappy (@Sadface_RL) on X

It is a DITHERent way of shading. #pixelart

Twitter · Nov 8, 2021, 8:59 PM

[cerulean breach]

This is good advice swattso :3

I forgot about dithering!!