Comment on MountainResidence PIXEL by Dillerkind
And what exactly is "dithering" as a previous poster said? From my (very limited) understanding it's the "noise" and that could only be avoided by using more shades, right?
You're not bothering me at all. Yes, pixel-art is done pixel by pixel. It has its roots in the early days of computer/videogames where the hardware had very narrow limits in terms of screen resolution, color palette, etc. Technically these restrictions may not exist any more today. However some artists still like to stick to "artificial restrictions", i.e. working with a maximum (usually very low) number of colors, a given palette or resolution or such.
Yes, dithering is that noise. In pixel-art it's a technique used to blend two colors by using different patterns, like a checkerboard pattern. Since you're often working with a very limited number of different colors, this can be used to create additional colors or to get (more or less) smooth transitions from color A to color B. Adding more shades/colors could help but like I said, very often in pixel-art you're trying to keep the color count low, for one reason or another.
If you're interested in this, check out the link in the description above. There's some info and examples given for the palette that I used in this pic. Much better examples for what can be done with the palette than my humble attempt here, mind you. I'm not very experienced with pixels yet.