Strange Forest
Starting the year with one of my biggest works, both literally and symbolically.
Back in the good ol' days of 2019, I made a promise to myself and a few discord server acquaintances. After looking at some works from skittle (@skittlefuck), more specifically, his background art for EagleIsland, I got very sappy, and said "the more i look at these pixel arts the more inspired i get to go and try to improve myself, so that one day i could like at that and go "oh that? yeah i guess i could do that"".
Well, 3 years later, that's what I sought out to achieve. It's been months since I've made something big, and I've never tried to do something this complex, ever. It was a very interesting journey, and I made sure to save plenty of drafts for a cool presentation!
Update from june. Tweaked the colors, took some out, tried to make the whole thing feel more connected and better contrasted.
The finished work. Took about a week of work, with the first few days being fully commited to this. I did eventually slow down when I only had to do the finishing touches, because it does get boring to choose which areas need more detail and which don't.
The full process. I saved a lot of drafts whenever I stopped for a moment, in case I needed to look at previous features. It actually came in quite clutch a few times, when I deleted some areas and didn't save beforehand!