A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

Pixel art is very trendy right now, but it probably won't remain so forever. Shooting film in black and white used to be all that was possible. Then it became what was cheap. Today, we still see some B&W films for aesthetic reasons, but it's very uncommon. Pixel art will probably become very similar to B&W film eventually. Seldom used, but used for a specific effect when it is used.

There's room for plenty of aesthetics besides pixel art and "HD" though. With modern displays, there's no reason that games can't borrow aesthetics from other mediums. Watercolors, comic book print, you name it. Heck, even though it's similar to pixels, I'd kill to see a good game created to look like a Byzantine mosaic! Adopting these limitations when appropriate offers artists a chance to take on problems nobody has seen handled before, and it's therefore more interesting than just working with the same artificial limitation everyone else is currently working with.

I'd just like to expand on the idea of a mosaic aesthetic a little bit more. It may seem like mosaics are just irregularly shaped pixels, but it's actually much more than that. Mosaics were made out of a variety of materials that scattered and reflected light in very different ways. Some tiles were matte, some colored glass, and others backed in gold leaf to amp up their reflectivity. Mosaic tiles were also angled to reflect light very strategically, allowing the artist to make some features grab your eye. A mosaic-based game would require a virtual mosaic toolset that would give artists the ability to simulate different tile materials and angles and a lighting engine to render the results. The resulting image would have complexity on a much smaller scale than a single tile.

I am not using a double standard. Though, even if both figures were deformed beyond what is absolutely realistic, there could still be well-executed and poorly-executed iterations.

Anyway, whether or not something is old is immaterial. Pixar is making some of my favorite animation period, and they keep getting better. AND they're American.

By all means, dismantle my argument. I would be happy to discuss. I don't think ad hominem is the best place to start.

Thanks a lot for reading, either way!

I'm sorry you're not into Auro's art, but I just popped in to clear something up.

At no point do I laud my own work as all that great. I can't speak to how good I am. I do my best, and that's all I can do. Full disclosure, the only reason I included it at all was to plug it. We're a small, new company and need all the help we can get.

I also think it's a little strange to hear that I spend no time on my art's issues when the whole article is basically saying the entire art direction was a big mistake.

I'm not a graphic designer, yet I had to make every art asset in the game. I have to wear many hats, and I wear some better than others. I'm always learning, always pushing, always questioning, always trying to improve. Pretty much every example I gave of pixel art is insanely better than I am. That doesn't bother me. There will always be someone better, and there will always be someone worse. Besides, even if my work was the most ghastly thing you've ever seen, it wouldn't make my arguments any more or less valid. If you think my positions are incorrect, I don't see how that has to do with how much or how little I discuss my own work. That said, I'll be the first to fuss and fuss and fuss over the flaws and shortcomings in my work. I'm my own worst enemy. Does it make you feel better to hear that?