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Trying for 1 month but can't learn pixel art still

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Re: Trying for 1 month but can't learn pixel art still

#21

Post by pitched »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #7

Similar in concept but for different reasons; does anybody know of a way to convert images into a '8bit pixel map'? My wife likes to take images and crochet them into tapestry/blankets/cozies. It seems to me that if we could get a grid overlay onto an image she could then make whatever she wanted. (One color per 'pixel')

Drawing grids over an image is easy. Choosing which colour to drop in is impossibly hard and where the art is. Nearest Neighbour and Average of N Points are some algorithms than can be used but don’t take the overall style of the image into account. For example, one pixel could cover a part of the nose and a part of the eye and averaging them makes a blurry mess.

Re: Trying for 1 month but can't learn pixel art still

#22

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

SteveStavros wrote: post #11

The hardest part of learning any creative skill is that your taste develops faster than your ability. You can see exactly what's wrong with your work but can't fix it yet. That gap is brutal but it means you're improving even when it doesn't feel like it.

One of the best comments I have ever read on hackernews.

Re: Trying for 1 month but can't learn pixel art still

#23

Post by al_borland »

You can’t study or ready your way to better art. You need to be hands on. When you have trouble with a specific thing, you can watch a video or get some advice on that, but then will still need to practice, practice, practice.

Also be realistic about how much progress you can make in a certain amount of time. You can make a game with very basic sprites. As your art improves, so can the sprites in the games.

The other option is to partner up with someone who has art skills already, but can’t make games. Together you can make more than either one could make alone.

Re: Trying for 1 month but can't learn pixel art still

#24

Post by DonHopkins »

Peter Norvig should write an essay about teaching yourself pixel art in 10 years, to go with his article about programming:

https://norvig.com/21-days.html

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

Peter Norvig

Why is everyone in such a rush?

Walk into any bookstore, and you'll see how to Teach Yourself Java in 24 Hours alongside endless variations offering to teach C, SQL, Ruby, Algorithms, and so on in a few days or hours. The Amazon advanced search for [title: teach, yourself, hours, since: 2000 and found 512 such books. Of the top ten, nine are programming books (the other is about bookkeeping). Similar results come from replacing "teach yourself" with "learn" or "hours" with "days."

The conclusion is that either people are in a big rush to learn about programming, or that programming is somehow fabulously easier to learn than anything else. Felleisen et al. give a nod to this trend in their book How to Design Programs, when they say "Bad programming is easy. Idiots can learn it in 21 days, even if they are dummies." The Abtruse Goose comic also had their take.

[...]

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

Researchers (Bloom (1985), Bryan & Harter (1899), Hayes (1989), Simmon & Chase (1973)) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, telegraph operation, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music. In another genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene with a string of #1 hits and an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. But they had been playing small clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg since 1957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first great critical success, Sgt. Peppers, was released in 1967.

[...]

Re: Trying for 1 month but can't learn pixel art still

#25

Post by merelysounds »

It’s a completely opposite scenario for me, I accidentally shipped a pixel art game.

It’s actually a game about nonograms. My first attempts at pixel art were bad but it didn’t matter that much, the focus was elsewhere anyway. With time the art improved; far from perfect but it’s still one of the things I like most about that game.

So I guess: practice, room for failure, achievable goals and time.

Re: Trying for 1 month but can't learn pixel art still

#26

Post by Tade0 »

I also tried getting into pixel art, thinking "there's a finite number of pixels - surely I can arrive at something visually appealing via trial and error".

Nope. Turns out it's a whole field of study and an artform in its own right.

If you're making a top-down perspective game, I wholeheartedly recommend Liberated Pixel Cup assets, especially the character generator:

https://liberatedpixelcup.github.io/Universal-LPC-Spriteshee...

There's a crazy number of configuration options and you can create all kinds of humanoid characters out of it.

Re: Trying for 1 month but can't learn pixel art still

#27

Post by gyrospike »

I'm in the same boat, coming from programming trying to get into pixel art. It's been discouraging how slowly I've improved, but I noticed that I have improved a little looking back at my first attempts. Keep working at it, make sure you enjoy using your tools (Aesprite seems pretty good), and remember to count as progress learning your tools better.

Re: Trying for 1 month but can't learn pixel art still

#29

Post by quikoa »

You don't have to go at it alone, share your idea(s) and get a pixel artist to join.

Think about how much time you invested in to learning programming. If you're not prepared to do the same for art it's better to get someone else to do it. Especially if you don't enjoy it.

Re: Trying for 1 month but can't learn pixel art still

#30

Post by bluefirebrand »

jstanley wrote: post #15
drewbug01 wrote: post #9

There is no shortcut to art, but that’s part of why it is so valuable to society and so rewarding to create. But don’t let that discourage you. If you want to make your own art, keep working at it. You will always get better with time and practice. It takes a long time and even the best artists frequently feel like their work isn’t good enough. But dedication and practice will pay off in time.

That fact that something is hard to do is not what makes it valuable. It's hard to dig really big holes in the ground all day at random, but it's not valuable.

> It's hard to dig really big holes in the ground all day at random, but it's not valuable

Don't mistake "it takes a lot of effort" with "it is hard"

Digging holes isn't hard, it just takes a lot of effort

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