Hey guys I'm back. This one is probably going to be a short talk about improving our attention to detail with art, but this is not to say more details = better art. Some art looks better without smaller details, especially pixel art at a small scale would be horrendous with too many small details. For example if we look at the grass in classic top-down pixel JRPGs, we don't see every single blade of grass, we kind of mostly just see large green clusters, but we still know it's grass due to context clues such as nearby bushes, trees, or flowers. I honestly think it's way better that way, because the grass would be too distracting otherwise. We do need to have enough detail for viewers to understand what we're drawing, but we don't always need every small detail and there are also diminishing returns and extra time consumption that come with adding smaller details. So that's just to get that out of the way first.
With that said, if you ever feel like you're not improving with your attention to detail and you keep drawing your sprites at the same level of quality each time, then I have a tip: Compare your art with a better example then find the MAIN key thing the better example does better, not just any small detail but the main detail or thing that substantially causes a better vibe with the better example, then try to add it to yours. Your drawing still won't be perfect, but this can usually make your drawing look a huge leap better. Again, I don't mean go spotting any little detail that you can add to yours. Spot the main difference then try to incorporate that to your drawing. Then you just keep iterating this process until you're satisfied with the drawing!
That's all it is, When artists start out, we are only able to memorize and draw out the key details of whatever we are trying to drawing. If we try to draw a dragon, we all probably know there are wings, a reptilian head, a tail, some feet, etc. then we look at what we draw and might think it looks terrible! But this is absolutely a continuous iterative process that all artists go through and why it can be important to spend a lot of time practicing drawing. We look at better example of a dragon again and might realize "oh right, I got the basic anatomy down, but my proportions are off compared to the way this other artist drew his", we fix the changes again "hmm... my whole dragon pose is off, so unfortunately I need to redraw the pose from scratch all over again" That's totally fine, just do it. We look again, "oh right, I totally forgot the scales and the little spiky horns on the cheeks!" This is basically how improving attention to detail works. It's iterative learning over a long course of time. It's not about getting everything right on the first attempt. Try to draw the key details, then the next set of key details, then the next set, and the next set, and so on.
If you draw a lot, there's just almost no way your attention to detail won't improve. The more consistently we draw certain things, the more we're going to memorize those details whenever its time to redraw those details with our next artworks. That all I got to say for this post. I'm keeping it short and no fancy images but good luck!