i wrote up a very long r/gamedev post on what i wish someone had told me when i started learning game art. it's doing surprisingly well over there so i'm just going to copy it here too, reddit humor and all:
local queer disaster pack of critters | ΘΔ &
mid 20s
i wrote up a very long r/gamedev post on what i wish someone had told me when i started learning game art. it's doing surprisingly well over there so i'm just going to copy it here too, reddit humor and all:
Oooo this is awesome, thank you so much for sharing :3 i'm definitely in this boat, having a degree in game development but focusing a lot on the programmer-y side of things. i will save this and cherish it and hopefully release something someday. <3
I'm fairly decent at normal art, but this does help give direction for game art! Thanks for the writeup. I really should try making a game in a more limited palette.
OMG, thank you! This might be the sign for me to take a dip into making game art for fun! Let's goooooooooo! 
please do!!! it's so much better when you treat it as something fun instead of taking it too seriously :)
This is a great post! Having confidence in one's art (however "bad" it may be) and committing to a visual style can make for good-looking graphics in any game, and everyone can do that. Cohesion, motion, and clarity > quality of individual pieces IMO
Favor expression over convention
Have you ever noticed that a lot of pixel art platformers kinda... look the same? Imagine a pixel art tree. You'll probably think of something like this.
YES YES YES SOMEONE SAID IT
i was scared of being mean but honestly!!! i hear people say that they're tired of pixel art platformers, but i think they're just tired of seeing the exact same art
or seeing pixel art on social media or reddit and its always the same and it feels like as if they all used the same 2 tutorials from reddit. i like amateurish and rough pixelart way more because of that