When you say “new artist”, do you mean that as “new to art in general” or “new to selling assets on itch”? It’s not entirely clear to me, but if you mean the former I can think of a few things. You probably have this stuff on your list already, but I’ll put ’em down here anyway:
- Fundamentals are key. Understanding form and light is probably the #1 place to start, or else you’re likely to hit a wall. If you want to learn animation, familiarize yourself with the 12 principles of animation. Etc.
- Feedback is a useful tool. If you can find people with more experience to critique your work, you’ll learn much faster than on your own. On that same note, giving critique is also good for learning.
- Visual art, like gamedev, benefits from an iterative process. Find a workflow that lets you test ideas quickly, and make use of thumbnails and similar techniques to find a design rather than simply making one and sticking to it.
- Photo references are important, even if you’re working in an unrealistic style. The human brain is terrible at remembering what things really look like, but I see a lot of novice artists not thinking to double-check what things look like before drawing them or thinking that it’s somehow ‘cheating’. It’s important to remind people of the importance of doing so.
- Due to the way the human eye functions, the most important component of color is value. Always make sure your art is readable in grayscale, this will impact the quality of your colors.
- When doing character design, try to give characters distinct silhouettes. This will improve their readability.
Feel free to use whichever of these you want. And please do post the video when it’s done, I’d be curious to see how it turns out!