Pixel Art Tiny squares that can create some amazing things. I've loved pixel art since | was very young, my older sister introduced me to it. Originally all | did was dolls, then went onto small pixel pets and then finally sprites and scenery. I've been pixelling for the past 10 years, working on improving slowly. Pixel artis one of the few things that I've never gotten tired of doing, no matter how long it takes me, it’s always fun and it is something that's easy to learn since its made so small. | hope you enjoy what I've made.Getting into Pixel art Pixels are small squares on your computer, everything graphically is made up of pixels. If you zoom in_on a photo you Il notice tiny squares of different colours. Those are pixels. Pixel art can be done in various ways, and in a lot of different styles. A lot of the older games we grew up with were done in pixel art because it was reduced In size and easier to put more onto the small cartridges We'll start with the bare basics, getting set up to do pixel art. Most art programs allow you to do pixel art, but the easiest | found were Photoshop Gimp MS Paint While Photoshop isn’t a free to use program, Paint and Gimp are. The only tool we'll really be using in these programs is this one. The pencil tool.canvas ixels. That's for my larger herwise they are around 50x50 pixels which is what | use for icons. Pixel artis most often made small, on average m sizes ge to a max of 250 p works, 01 This is a 50 by 50 pixel square, so now that we have our canvas we can set our pencil tool to 1 pixel and start sketching. Sime: 1px n The reason we use the pencil tool is you get a completely perfect and crisp pixel, where as with the brush you have a lot of extra blurred pixels which is going to add a lot of extra colour and make it difficult to draw in a small space. Oe We can now sketch a basic shape using our pencil tool, it's easier if you zoom in so that the pixels are a decent size. _. Most programs use roughly the same tools, a magnifying glass to zoom in, the pencil for Q pixelling, and the eraser.Sketch down what you d like for your pixel piece. For mine I've drawn one of my mascots Zero. As you can see he's pretty messy. but since the sketch is there we can clean up the lines. Make them look a bit more smooth much like linearting a normal sketch. As you can see from the image on the right, its a lot cleaner and easier to see. | changed the pose just a little bit during the clean up process as it didnt look right to me. Changes are easy to make and its a good idea to change something if it looks off to you. Alright, with the cleanup done we can add the base colours. Now everything is very clear to see, so if you think anything looks incorrect its easier to change it. Thats a simple way of getting started with pixel art. There are other ways you can pixel such as painting with pixels and very large pixel work.shading Understanding shadows makes life a lot easier to shade a variety of objects and pictures. Colour is also important but we will get to that later on. When you re shading an object you want to know where the lighting is coming from, and what kind of light source you have. Is it really bright like the sun? Or dim like a flame. Is it behind or infront of the characterjobject? Go @a Light bounces off objects, and where it cannot hit itis darker, as shown above, we have both a sphere and a cube that have light coming from the top left, they are both brightest up the top were the light is coming from, but on the right side, it's darker because it isnt getting direct sunlight, the images on the right have the light coming from behind, to show this the ___ front of the objects is darker, where as the back are highlighted. When you stand in the sunlight with your back to e sun, your entire front is completely dark, because the sunlight cant hit it. The same applies to shadows in drawing. Lighting will also effect how bright that light is, the dimmer the light source, the bigger the shadows will be, the brighter the light source the more highlights but darker shadows you ave. wik al Importance of Colours Z Colours make a big difference to your work, it helps create the mood and feel you want to give off. This goes for both pixel and other drawn works. For instance cold colours like blue and purple can work very well for a sad picture, while light blue and white can be something gentle. Warm colours bring a nice warm feel to the picture, but both colour combinations work well when put together, such as putting blue and purple with a nice bright orange and yellow fire. The first image has very dark blues and purples, but bright orange eyes, this gives off a rather dark and cold demeaner. Yrhile the second is a bit lighter, it gives off.a warm glow of a fire with the cold shadows. The third is in daylight, the colours are more cool but bright where it's no __, Jonger intimidating, and the final image is a sunset lighting, which is shown with light orange and yellow based colours while still having a cool but slightly warm shadow.Contrast For pixel art contrast is important. The smaller the pixel art, | find the more contrast you need, othenvise colours tend to mash together and you cant see whats going on. While bigger pixel art needs more colours and less contrast to blend the colours together. Contrast is also going to help define details more, such as harsh shadows or objects you want people to notice first on your artwork. : Ee This image for example, in the bottom right you can see the harsh shadow that the tree gives off. Where as other colours tend to blend in more, the more you want it to stand apart from the other parts of the picture the more you want to define it and have it more of a contrasting colour. ¥Y, As you can see it's a lot easier to tell whats going on when the colours have more, contrast. The one on the right is a bit more muddy and its got no real definition to it.Blending Colours ou have a set palette but some of the colours arent When quite Bending in properl you can always add in another colour between the two to help it blend in more. This is often called Anti Aliasing this helps blend the skin into the outline without making the outline too light. With this image you can see I've got the darker shade in the small cracks of the edge, it follows all the way around but doesn t hug the edge too much, it's only one or two pixels at a time in the corner of the outline. This is what youd like to avoid. This is called pillow shading, where you hug the outside line all the way around, and it tends to take away all the shape to your shadows. Dithering is also a commonly used way of blending two colours without having to add any extra colours to your palette. The point of dithering is trying to weave the two colours together, which helps blend them when you have little to no colours to use.Picking ‘Your Palette 4 lot of people struggle with picking a colour palette, even | have troubles with it on occasion. Colours are important to your image, as stated on a previous page. So the palette you choose is going to say a lot about your work. Generally when I'm picking my colours | start with the base colour | want. So I've picked the base colours | want next up | we Il be picking a shading colour. With wha we ve learned from the previous pages, we want || to pick colours that will match the mood we re trying to convey. For mine I'll be doing a basic daylight shaded palette. So we Il pick a darker shade of each colour. Now we have a darker shade for our base || colour. We also need a highlight, dont forget you can play with colours dont always need to [IT go straight down towards black, if you have a yellow shade it with an orange, and if shadin white, you can use a light blue-ish grey. Don || just stick with black and white shades and highlights. Find colours that work well together. I've added my highlight colours to my nn palette, you can probably notice with m purple highlight hat it's closer to a pin han a purple.Now that we have our colours, using the contrast as well so that they re not too close together, you can easily edit the palette as you go, if its not quite dark enough or too dark, you can change it as you please. If you like your palette but a colour isn’t blending properly, the easiest option is to add another colour into your palette. We've edited the palette and added an 6) hon extra colour between each shade, this just helps us blend some shadows or |6=—h highlights that don't seem to work right on their own. 6h |_| You want to avoid using blacks or greys for highlight and shadows. Picking colours that match help quite a lot, like purple highlig ting to pink. or green highlighting to yellow, even blue can hig light toa softer brighter ue. Here's just a few examples of picking colours, using ifferent la | colours instead of just usin black shades of a origina nl = colour. This justadds alotmore [0 vibrance to your image.Dolls and Sprites Though people dont realize it there is a difference between dolls‘and sprites. Sprites are generally drawn from scratch, while dolls use a base. &9@ Sprites Dolls As you can see sprites are drawn from scratch they all look different, and can often get different styles depending on the size, while the dolls all come from the same base. Just like dolls in real life. you start with a base and then add on your clothing and hair, while with sprites you have to sketch out the picture like you would if you were drawing normally. ithout using a base to start off. Both are valid pixel art forms and both require skill but most people do find it easier to start with dolls than sprites. Since the anatomy is already done.Pixel Painting | tend to like doing pixel art in a lot of different styles, painting with pixels is another that | enjoy doing since you can constantly edit small things as you go. You can still start with a concept but genera ly you don't keep the dark outlines. With my, concept I've just used straight out colours I'd like as my base colours, as you can see | have my sky, clouds, sand and water. has all the basics in it fora nice beach scene. This time Ive refined my basic idea, so you can see everything a bit more clearly. Now we can start adding shadows. So we have to figure out where the light source is coming from. From the colours it looks like day time. Me have some basic shadows in, and I've also added in some rocks since | thought it looked to bare through that part. Now we can add Some highlights and refine our shadows a bit more. ala Ee ae 7 A ag -7" ere eiPixel Painting Now we ve got some shadows and highlights, but it still looks a fittle bit flat. Next up we Il just be refining eveything, so blending colours together that need it and adding in any extra shades if it doesn t seem to be working correctly. Now we've got a bit more refinement in our picture. Everything is fully shaded, and technically you can consider this finished, but it depends on if you want to add in more details or not. Me personally | normally add in small details things like shells, maybe a startis some extra lighting on the rocks and water.Pixel Painting Finished adding in my details and fixed up a couple of shadows | thought looked misplaced. The fun thing about Painting is you can always go over the top of what you re doing, with pixel art as a whole its not as difficult'to do that since it's small and has few colours. | find the fewer colours you have the easier it is to edit. Adding in a few bits and pieces, where you think it's too bare is perfectly fine. | quite often change entire parts of a picture even after its been shaded because | think it could look better done in a different way, so playing with your palette etc can change the entire concept and feeling of your picture. So it doesn't have to be completely set in stone once you ve done the sketch of it. Have fun with it that’s the most important thing.Isometric Pixels Isometric pixel art has been a commonly used style for people wanting a 3D look to their pixel art. With isometric pixels you can change the angle of the camera quite easily with the amount of pixels in each ‘block the one on the left has 2 pixels for each angle, while the one on the right has only one. The amount you use for your angle is up to you, | personally prefer to stick to two pixels as | find it's easier to work with. ‘You need to make sure all your lines match if you re going at an angle, otherwise it looks wonkyfun balanced, 0 you need to make sure you keep everything going at the same angle. oa x os like furniture. ‘You can curve the edges, make things smoother and turn it into other shapes. SI Using the basic cube you've got as a base, you can mold it into other things,Isometric Pixels There's not much of a limit when it comes to isometric, you can make small buildings from simple shapes using the same idea. ‘You can keep building onto the shape, and create something new from it. Even building things like a room doesnt become too much of a challenge once you get started. This is how | started, | enjoy building rooms for sprites | used to make. Any sprite should fit in this kind of setting so long as you have it at the correct angle. This is just a simple 3/4 view sprite | made, it fits well with the surrounding since its going along with the same angle as the setting. So long as you follow the flow/angle of your setting you can putin almost anything without It sticking out.otylising ‘Your York With every art form you can build a style behind it, things like your colours, how detailed, small or large your work is will create a different style. For example. the older gameboy games were styled to have very few colours and very tinge sprites, while newer games can have larger more Colourful sprites. =e F Other things like dark outlines, no outlines, bright or dark colours, very detailed or hardly coloured sp rites are all going to contribute to what you re making. Pla aying around with styles until you find something you re happy with, or something that suits the theme you re going for is important. It's not just in how you draw it, but also in it's size, colour, how thick or thin the outlines are, how detailed itis, how bright or dull it looks. Everything contributes.Adding Yolume and Depth ; Something that often happens is making an object look flat with your shadows and lighting. This is something | used to have a lot of problem with. We'll start with this tree, it's completely bare at the moment so we Il put some leaves on it. I've added some leaves but it looks a little flat. even though we have our basic shadows and lighting, there's not a lot of real volume or depth to this tree. This is more like it, the leaves at the front are more detailed, while the ones near the back are darker and have very little to nothing in the way of shadows or highlights. This gives it more volume and helps bring the illusion this tree is thick and full of leaves. Adding more shadow to the branches of the tree help as well, its more defined and you can tell there s more leaves to block out the light. So adding some shadows to the underbranches will help show that off a little bit more. The same thing applies to backgrounds, things you want ipecele to notice will be more detailed as they re closer to camera, while the things off in the distance will be less detailed often a tiny bit harder to see. Looking at photographs for reference i always a good idea if you get confused.Cull (Pisce YY outiies The following pages are a compilation of all the pixelartl have done over the years. Its funny that only recently | realized justhow much | seemed to enjoy making adoptable type stuff. I hope you enjoy whatlve made and I hope it inspires you to create something you enjoy. It doens t matter how good or bad itlooks, so long as you enjoy making it.Fons woOUWVTWUYs eg 9S oie er Baig © w a ia Sooo ee & Sig *% osgG2 6 vo i PUI UNS aaSEB IeKywea =e OOFaia pit 2 s TORT ere or) By Oof AAANever give up on it. With time anyone can become good at something. It justtakes a bit of effort. eS 2604 2015 2004 2015 Ive been doing pixel art since 2004, Inever thoughtI'd be atthe level | am now. I still enjoy it as much as when | started.Thank you Specialthank you to my beloved Patrons, who allow me to keep doing this A dear friend who has always stuck up and been there for me. Kikimonole A very funny and wi uy, who is always u RHeReMa others wk Kus gem. tf omgitssoup Always a pleasure to talk to. Someone ['m quite happy to take the time out to have a chat with. MadJake45 A kind and happy person, it's always nice to get a message from you. Duane Mason You give without asking for anything in return, a truely noble and beautitul person both inside and out. Jessica Conlins Generious and very kind, it's a Pea to have you pop up in my life. Kate LambourneThank you Special thank you to my beloved Patrons, who allow me to keep doing this Sawto oth44 Seriously | don't know what I'd have done without you, you helped me during hard times, always Stick around on me and others a laugh and are there no matter what happens. Thank you so much for everything you ve done. There's many other people | have to thank, allmy friends and family. | don tknow where I'd be without you. Thank you for letting me be myself. and for allowing me to bring the ideas [have in my mind to life. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.My pixel works over the past ten years. Along with various tutorials to help you guys get started in learning how to do it yourself. HELLO?