Beast Of Burden :: Pixel Art Detail

I was going to pixel a big pile of hay on his back like in the reference, but i was unable to make it look nice.  So i just cropped it out so I could enter the weekly challenge. 

Where is the burden! He's missing a rider or a big pack of corn!

The sand texture you added is very uniquie... but very cool. I thought "Battery Operated Boyfriend" was a fantastic idea, by the way.

ooh, i like the grid but is that going to turn into sand later or stay a grid? Now you have 3 levels of dunes. I'd say make the bg behind the sun darker, maybe melt the sun into the bg area behind the 3rd dune. Also, shadows should be stronger on the side of the donkey that's facing us, since the lightsoruce is on the opposite side, take in account that the sand will reflect light onto the donkey. Looking great ;)

This has been a true beast of burden for me!   Made a new edit.. hope it's better. 

Adam: You certainly are getting better. I would reuse some colors from the rest of the piece to shade the sun a little so it was blurry ( IE: lots of heat in the desert gonna blur the sun ). I like how the donkey seems to be on the top of a large dune with the edge falling off towards the VP I think the sand itself would look better if it was smoothed out to validate this effect. Great work :)

Poor animal, I bet he is very tired and thirsty, he looks so sad!

Ground could use some work, looks like a bunch of random dots, no texture.

Edit: Yeah I see you fixed the ground. I think it could be more like small dunes, right now it looks just like lines, but this is much better than the previous ground.

Nicely done, although I would add some dirt to the ground instead of just one color.