Personally, I don’t really care if something’s hard to program; after all, these are just concepts. I understand that some have concerns about practicality (programming, lag, hackers), which shows a philosophy that ideas should be judged on implementability.
You have shading, which is a good start, but that doesn’t mean your shading’s great. You tend to pillow shade (using a uniform shadow gradient without a definite light source); while this is less detrimental to 8x8 sprites than, say, 64x64, this gradient looks ugly. There are, in general, two types of sprites that look good in realm: those without shading at all and those with effective, realistic shading.
vs
Notice that the former sprite captures the shape well while retaining an aspect of simplicity, while the shading in the latter is more nuanced than what you have done.
I’ll focus on the latter one, as this is more fitting with the more modern aesthetic of newer untiered items. I will make the following observations on the latter:
- The shading is is nonuniform but not arbitrary. Part of the elegance of pixel art is the perception of complex textures: you must be ambitious enough to color two neighboring pixels with starkly different shades, even just for shadows. Convey a “rocky” texture with locally grainy pixels, still with a larger theme of dark and light; convey a “silky” texture with a subtle vertical shading. Look at your ring:
This doesn’t look like a gemstone, but rather like an undershaded rock. Gemstones tend to have very bright shining patches.
- Shading does not mean simply darker shades: there is far more to it. Take a look at the staff of the crystal serpent (specifically the crystal on the staff):
Notice that the lighter section is not just a lighter version of the darker section but rather a different color altogether. This is one of the best color schemes in ROTMG, in my opinion.
- This takes more practice, but the other aspects of your sprites are not great, either. Be more ambitious about varying your shapes and orientations; combine different colors in a more organic yet intriguing fashion. It’s ok to use disconnected pixels, but don’t overdo it; different color schemes or gradients (ex. “sunset” or spectral") may be preferable; feel free to blend and mix colors in original ways. Below are some of my item sprites that may illustrate this:
Best of luck with your future endeavors!