Here is a video of me speed drawing a pixel art background. I’m no pixel art guru. Far from it. But I enjoy it. I got my start in digital animating way back in 2004 when I started making my own games in Adventure game studio. Those were VERY bad. But we all start somewhere. My pixel art drawings were terrible. I tweaked this pixel art background somewhat after recording this video. I wasn’t satisfied with the shadows dropping from the door posts.
Pixel art is a beast on it’s own. I’m a fairly competent illustrator I would think. But when you are limited to just 320×200 pixels you have to think simpler sometimes. You need to count on the viewer to fill in the gaps and recognize simple objects as something more complex.