IronHand,
You're one of the best artists I've ever seen work on DF graphics.
There's potential in this set to be DF's best. And that's why I have a tough criticism.
If this was just another random mishmash of pixels then I would never bother to post,
but since you're doing such a great job I feel the need to help even if it's tough love.
Your dwarf tiles looks like amateur work because of the template-repetition.
The fatal flaw is that *every dwarf came from the same seed*
That seed is the very first dwarf you drew.
He is the master gene from which all of your other dwarf tiles descended.
It's like a weird race of mongoloid clones that are missing a certain chromosome which is causing them all to look the same.
You created a template, and have applied new clothing / headgear / items to this template,
but every one of your dwarves is still the same person who has got a haircut and a new hat.
Now I'm not saying you need to go overboard and create a different dwarf person for every single tile.
Yes, I understand that would be impractical and you can't spend forever on the set.
But you need to start with *a few seeds* rather than just *one seed*.
Starting with just one seed is exponentially worse than starting with even 2, or 3...
That tiny little bit of extra variation makes all the difference in the beauty of the end result.
If you had started with maybe 5 basic dwarves who are drawn with the same style, the same antialiasing, the same almost everything *except* they are different people, the mind of the viewer would be tricked into perceiving far more graphical detail than is actually present.
Here is an example which started out with multiple seeds:
http://df.magmawiki.com/images/7/75/Dwarves2_dqe.pngNotice that just on the top two rows, you can see 4 or 5 basic seeds which are then re-used.
Note the minor details in their faces and shapes which make them unique, yet they all look like they have come from the same civilization of dwarves.
So yeah, hate to say it but I think you should start over and go back with some genetic diversity.
- Zoal