Working on some backgrounds! At the top is the prison yard! I'm really happy with how the clouds turned out. I also tried to limit myself to four colours with each aspect of the picture, which is different to how I handled the spriting before.
Beneath is the primary cell block, Alpha. It links to all the areas with nice signs. This background was done with pressure sensitive shading, different to above.
In general, I think I'll stick to the limit colour palette style of shading - it's more authentic, since this is going to look retro, and will be more rewarding in my eyes to pull off.