Pixel Art Shading & Lighting

A little bit of shading can go a long way in making an image look good. For example, check out this cloud I made (It's blue because the game I made it for is ice-themed so almost everything is blue) 

The cloud uses only two colors and yet still looks decent because the shading gives it a sense of depth and direction. You can tell immediately which direction the cloud is moving and where the light is coming from. 

However, it's not quite as simple as just making the bottom and one of the sides dark. Some images will have different lighting and thus the shading will be more difficult, such as this image I made of a boy in a hospital room. 

In this picture, the light is coming from the crack underneath the door and the window on the door, not from one direction. You'll notice that the background gradually shifts shade of gray until it becomes almost black. The area by the door is a light gray because that is where the light is coming from. However, if you look closely you can see that the corner above the door is darker then the gray surrounding it because the light from the door is mostly shining down. In this image, the shading isn't used so much to create depth or a sense of direction, but more of an atmosphere and to help draw your eye away from the main light source (The door) and to the hospital bed. This image by SmugLeaf2004 (Haha he's way better than me) has even more complex shading. 

So, where is the light source? The candle. Therefore, the shading is biggest at the left. You'll also notice that some shine on the left side of the Jack-O-Lantern. Shading is also applied underneath the mouth. Notice how the purplish lines get thicker the farther away from the candle, and how on the right side there isn't even any orange, just shadow. This helps make it seem like the candle is the only bright thing nearby and that everything else is dark.