365 days of pixel art

#1

Post by eigenbom » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 12:19 AM UTC

365 days of pixel art
medium.com

Re: 365 days of pixel art

#2

Post by needaremotegig » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 8:48 AM UTC

So much talent. Hard to believe he spent so little time on each of these.

Re: 365 days of pixel art

#3

Post by eigenbom » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 9:25 AM UTC

needaremotegig wrote: post #2

So much talent. Hard to believe he spent so little time on each of these.

Thanks! I think I averaged about 30 minutes per day on these, with a few pieces taking up to 2 hours. The daily practise has had a huge impact on my speed, more than anything else.

Re: 365 days of pixel art

#4

Post by pandatigox » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 9:54 AM UTC

I've always wanted to do pixel art, but somehow things don't seem "right" when I try. What are some good tips for an amateur pixel-artist? And also, what are some resources you would recommend? I really want create something but always feel stuck

Re: 365 days of pixel art

#5

Post by cousin_it » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 10:28 AM UTC

pandatigox wrote: post #4

I've always wanted to do pixel art, but somehow things don't seem "right" when I try. What are some good tips for an amateur pixel-artist? And also, what are some resources you would recommend? I really want create something but always feel stuck

Are you good at sketching with pencil and paper? If not, I recommend dropping pixel art for a few weeks, picking up a good book by Betty Edwards or Andrew Loomis (both can be found as pdfs online), and filling a couple sketchbooks.

To make good pixel art, or any other kind of art really, first you must learn to see shapes in a particular way that's not intuitive for non-artists. It's a bit hard to explain in words, but if your mind hasn't learned that trick, your shapes will always come out wrong and you won't know why. Sketching allows you to learn that skill quickly and easily, while pixeling has so many distractions that IMO it's almost impossible to learn from pixeling alone.

With the right approach, as described in the books I mentioned, most people see obvious and major progress after just a day or two. I'm not exaggerating at all, it took me literally one day of sketching with Betty Edwards' book to go from "I can't draw, it must be genetic" to "I can draw anything right if I look hard enough".

Re: 365 days of pixel art

#6

Post by eigenbom » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 11:10 AM UTC

pandatigox wrote: post #4

I've always wanted to do pixel art, but somehow things don't seem "right" when I try. What are some good tips for an amateur pixel-artist? And also, what are some resources you would recommend? I really want create something but always feel stuck

Sure. I find it best to keep it simple, use a decent palette like DB16 or Arne16, block in your shapes, and then add details. Constraints are your friend, especially when starting out. See what you can do with 4 shades of grey in 32x32 pixels .. for example can you draw a set of 8 different x-men within those constraints?

When you get to higher resolutions you need to think more about what the actual pixels are doing, are they jagged, are they banding or blurring, etc. A decent tutorial which covers those concepts is:

http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299

Understanding form and colour and shape and all those things from visual art is important for a lot of bigger pieces, but the nice thing in pixel art is that if you work in a low resolution it's easy to keep tweaking until it looks good. I did a lot of adjusting earlier on.

There are so many different styles of pixel art -- so browse Pixel Joint's gallery or the @Pixel_Dailies account until you find one that resonates. Copy and paste the image into your editor and then start pulling it apart to understand how it works. We did quite a few of these studies, and I found that artists like JunkBoy, AbyssWolf, and Mmro Tarius are especially instructive.

Good luck and I might see you over on Pixel Dailies sometime.

Re: 365 days of pixel art

#7

Post by golergka » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 11:13 AM UTC

pandatigox wrote: post #4

I've always wanted to do pixel art, but somehow things don't seem "right" when I try. What are some good tips for an amateur pixel-artist? And also, what are some resources you would recommend? I really want create something but always feel stuck

Try more.

I know that it sounds like a douche answer, but, seriously — I don't know a single field of knowledge or art where it seems right when you try for the first time.

Re: 365 days of pixel art

#8

Post by eigenbom » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 11:17 AM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #5

pandatigox wrote: post #4

I've always wanted to do pixel art, but somehow things don't seem "right" when I try. What are some good tips for an amateur pixel-artist? And also, what are some resources you would recommend? I really want create something but always feel stuck

Are you good at sketching with pencil and paper? If not, I recommend dropping pixel art for a few weeks, picking up a good book by Betty Edwards or Andrew Loomis (both can be found as pdfs online), and filling a couple sketchbooks. To make good pixel art, or any other kind of art really, first you must learn to see shapes in a particular way that's not intuitive for non-artists. It's a bit hard to explain in words, b…

The Loomis books are especially great and a must read for any figure drawing/painter/pixeller. However, if you start out with low-res pixel art (like a super mario snes sprite) then you don't really need to understand form at that level.

Re: 365 days of pixel art

#9

Post by monk_e_boy » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 11:31 AM UTC

Could you sum up your personal feelings of games using pixel art over a more cartoony vector art?

Personally I felt that Paper Mario was a lot easier on the eyes than more traditional pixel art games.

BTW moonman looks totally amazing.

Re: 365 days of pixel art

#10

Post by babuskov » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 11:38 AM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #5

pandatigox wrote: post #4

I've always wanted to do pixel art, but somehow things don't seem "right" when I try. What are some good tips for an amateur pixel-artist? And also, what are some resources you would recommend? I really want create something but always feel stuck

Are you good at sketching with pencil and paper? If not, I recommend dropping pixel art for a few weeks, picking up a good book by Betty Edwards or Andrew Loomis (both can be found as pdfs online), and filling a couple sketchbooks. To make good pixel art, or any other kind of art really, first you must learn to see shapes in a particular way that's not intuitive for non-artists. It's a bit hard to explain in words, b…

I can confirm this. I struggled a lot with making pixel art because I was trying to draw the outline with pixels and would always fail (except for rectangular inanimate objects like boxes and similar).

Then I tried to sketch first and it worked great. Here's the process:

1. draw by hand on paper

2. scan it (I take photos with my phone)

3. scale it down to the size you need

4. draw the outline (make sure two pixels do not touch except diagonally)

5. color with base colors

6. add shading

For steps 5 and 6 make sure you pick a consistent palette beforehand. Something with limited set of colors (say, up to 24) works best.

P.S. You can check the graphics I created this way in my Twitter feed (@mbabuskov). Look for the horse-shaped robot and the spaceship images and see how those look way better than other stuff I drew earlier.