~Spriting Faq~

[Adam]

And, once again, Vipershark is wrong!

Dithering is something that takes practice. You should use it in areas that texture would need to be applied- not like a glass texture, more like a sand or wood texture. More gritty things make dithering look better. Arachne from Pixeljoint and TIGSource explained it quite well:

Dithering can look jarring if it's not used right. That's all, as far as I know. It's just a matter of knowing what it does so you can choose what's most appropriate in different cases.

a) Dithering adds texture. More difference between the colors makes for a rougher texture. So dithering doesn't work very well for smooth or slimy surfaces. In this case, your octopus seems textured a bit like sandpaper in some parts.

b) Regular dithering patterns can make surfaces look plane. This can look out of place on curved or organic objects. Random pixels can break that grid and make the object look less uniform and angular, but it's also more noisy. However, if the colors are too different, you might end up with very pronounced single pixels, which will look bad in either case.

Pixeljoint has many examples of dithering used correctly- Here's a few:

http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/19806.htm
http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/5646.htm
http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/34152.htm
http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/32454.htm

-Dex