Pixel Art General - /PAG/

[Anonymous No.6021806]

Previous thread >>5939397

> Rules:
- Resize your images before posting!
- Binary art allowed if its low resolution.
- Converted/Photobashed images are not allowed.
- NSFW allowed.

> Resources
How do I learn pixel art ?
Where do I learn those things?
What software do I use ?
Where can I share my work ?

Check this out
https://pastebin.com/BK9s37m7(embed)

# TOOLS
http://graphicsgale.com/
https://www.getpaint.net/
https://www.aseprite.org/
https://www.piskelapp.com/
http://grafx2.chez.com/

# TUTORIALS
https://2dwillneverdie.com/tutorial/
https://lospec.com/pixel-art-tutorials
https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299
http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24744
https://saint11.org/blog/pixel-art-tutorials/
https://twitter.com/Sadface_RL
https://bandygrass.tumblr.com/

# COMMUNITIES
http://pixeljoint.com/
http://pixelation.org/
https://www.spriters-resource.com/
https://dotpict.net/

[Anonymous No.6021818]

it took me at least 20 minutes to copy the style of another pixel piece to make something that mimics armor. just one leg of one sprite. most sprites aren't mirrored.
I might complete the one frame but the timesink isn't a good idea for (currently) 46 frames in the spritesheet, that could grow to over 100. before I have a semi-finished game that is.

[Anonymous No.6022344]

[Anonymous No.6022418]

Bump

[Anonymous No.6022421]

Made this guy today, happy with how he turned out.

[Anonymous No.6022479]

You will never make anything better than this. How do you cope peasants?

[Anonymous No.6023035]

[Anonymous No.6023499]

>>6022479
When upscaling your work try to preview it first, so it won't take the entire page when clicked on. Nice work, otherwise!

[Anonymous No.6024635]

[Anonymous No.6025009]

>>6023499
this guy
>>6022479
is lying, it's shit.
>>6024635
I imagine a thick sauce fluid would flow in a different way but pretty piece nonetheless

[Anonymous No.6025341]

[Anonymous No.6025351]

What resolution is the picture on OP. 128? There are good examples out there of 128 pics? Seem so rare.

[Anonymous No.6025365]

>>6025351
I don't understand this question, the op pic is already on his original resolution meaning that it was drawn on a 640x480 canvas.

[Anonymous No.6025384]

>>6025365
Does this even qualifies as pixelart?

[Anonymous No.6025475]

>>6025384
Yes it does. Pixelart works can be of any size. What actually matters is what is drawn on a canvas, not it's size.

[Anonymous No.6025507]

here's a full cycle I did of this guy. I'm not sure what I'm doing with him.

[Anonymous No.6025523]

>>6025384
Pixel art has a very recognizable aesthetic but is not like it has hard rules, basically is just people imposing artificial rules on themselves, the fewer the colors and the smaller the resolution you made your drawing the more it will look like pixel art. But with larger pieces people will not immediately recognized it as pixel art because it doesn't look like they would expect, so it depends who you ask i guess, for artist who draw pixel art this obviously looks like it, but for most people my guess is that they look at that gif and just think of it as a "landscape" or a "landscape with a childish look".

[Anonymous No.6025559]

>>6025384
I disagree with the other two anons, pixel art is characterized by the pixels being distinguishable and at that resolution they blend together already

[Anonymous No.6026259]

>>6025507
Always remember the golden rule of pixelart - ALL pixels should be of equal size!

[Anonymous No.6026325]

[Anonymous No.6028411]

bump

Dmitry (loop hero)

[Anonymous No.6028565]

is it true that tracing is allowed in pixel art?

[Anonymous No.6028918]

I've made some improvements.
What do you guys think

[Anonymous No.6028920]

>>6028918
Slight edit

[Anonymous No.6029088]

>>6028565
Tracing, tracing your own art

[Anonymous No.6029211]

>>6028918
>>6028920
I think that this is one of the most disgusting pixel art creatures I've ever saw. Reminds me of the Devourer from Overlord 2 somehow.

Colors are way better now, (but you need to tweak saturation and maybe values in greens and blues) but there's still some problems with jaggies and the way you shade things. As I wrote before - try to work with 4-color version of your drawing at first, it will help you to see your problems better!

Good luck!

[Anonymous No.6029246]

>>6029088
>pixel art done on one layer
Nah fuck that shit, I move things around all the time or make stuff as isolated assets and place them into the scene and cutting and cleaning every time would take up a fuck ton of time. I also do versions of assets overlaid on top of each other so that I can quickly revert to an old version if I find I don't like a change I made.

[Anonymous No.6029316]

>>6029246
Oh i totally agree, I also keep my layers separated. I must've skipped over that part, or maybe I just vehemently ignored it

[Anonymous No.6029373]

[Anonymous No.6029571]

>>6022421
Long neck

[Anonymous No.6029611]

>>6023499
Ahh love these warm palettes so much. Very cute anon.

>>6022479
I've cried myself to sleep each night just to cope, your excellency.
Unironically though, it has a certain charm to it. :0

[Anonymous No.6029645]

>>6029571
Yeah, maybe it's a bit too long

>>6029611
Thank you very much! Upscale your work before posting it (like 400% for your pic)

[Anonymous No.6029999]

[Anonymous No.6030014]

>>6025341
Improved background a bit, the sea was way too primitive

[Anonymous No.6030032]

>>6030014
you know you sameface?
>I feel bad sending criticisms when my art is worse so here's the disclosure

[Anonymous No.6030053]

>>6030032
>you know you sameface?

Because I posted several different drawings of the same character, you mean?

[Anonymous No.6030063]

>>6030053
no, one of the guys above also looks like the girls.
basically the biggest distinction between them is the hair imo

[Anonymous No.6030070]

>>6029088
Source please, kind gentleman

[Anonymous No.6030072]

>>6030063
Oh, I see. I'll try to work on it then. Thank you!

[Anonymous No.6030106]

>>6030070
https://b-ok.asia/book/3702751/35441c

[Anonymous No.6030110]

I make pixel art for my mc world. How is it?

[Anonymous No.6030154]

>>6030032
Why is samefacing bad? It's common in manga and cartooning.
DESU, after seeing the work they've been posting across multiple threads, their characters look very distinct, especially given the limited detail in the medium.

[Anonymous No.6030387]

>>6030014
Is there a system behind your outline coloration? Usually disconnected outlines are done for AA reasons, it seems honestly more or less random with your work. Either that or your AA color choices just aren't the greatest. I think your work would greatly profit from lighter aa colors for the skin and more continuous outlines in general.

[Anonymous No.6030398]

>>6025559
no, it is charactersized by the artist having pixel-level control, meaning that the pixels are all individually meaningful. This is the reason for low palette counts, because huge palettes often have basically duplicate colors which is a sign of careless technique.
The discussion is years old though. If you wanna trigger pj, ask "what qualifies as pixel art?" and watch the shitstorm unfold. Every. Time.

The OP image is by Fool, and he's one of the masters, the big pieces are just big effort.
And tiny changes on the pixel level do still make all the difference, that's what clusters are all about after all. My landscapes couldn't work either without painful detail work, and I rarely work small.

[Anonymous No.6030410]

>>6030154
I can only refer to manga/anime since I'm uneducated about cartoons.
I dislike sameface because it's seen as a lack of skill on the creators side and lowers the quality of the work. people IRL don't look the same, unless it's family members of first degree. sometimes it's used as a creative tool and of course I don't have a problem with that. I think sameface is pretty generally disliked, it's not just me.

Yeah, it's not critical and the limitation of pixels is a contributor to the issue but perhaps there's something to be done.
>their characters look very distinct
to you, anon may choose to believe me or not, I'm fine either way.

[Anonymous No.6031564]

>>6030387
I try to develop my own style of coloring and AA. I prefer darker outlines with 2 pixel AA which smoothes the lines greatly.

I still work on my palette, so some colors are subject to change.

[Anonymous No.6032656]

>>6031564
I see your current outline style as the biggest weakness in your drawings, it seems random and as if you didn't fully grasp the technique behind aa yet. You gave great potential but please overthink the random breaks in your lines.

[Anonymous No.6032661]

[Anonymous No.6032679]

>>6032661
this is really nice.

[Anonymous No.6032708]

my first attempt

[Anonymous No.6032765]

general design. I'm aware it's very unfinished.
lines indicate curvature and/or light zones.

[Anonymous No.6033642]

Chaos Faction 2 character

[Anonymous No.6033707]

>>6032708
That's fantastic

[Anonymous No.6034037]

>>6033707
Give the frames different lenghts o that you can actually really see the animation, and you need to work on your shading, as in stronger contrast and clearer light sources. You have some good texturing techiniques but they become muddy in the end quickly. Maybe very dark outlines could help (because you dither so much), otherwise I'd have suggested big clusters but that's just not suiting your style.

>>6032708
Nice start, the grass animation looks a bit odd and maybe some swaying for the tree could help. Some of your colors (the yellowish green on the floor with it's two brighter pixels) don't make that much sense to me in the big picture, and seeing how the whisps have aa I wonder why nothing else has or alternatively they should lose theirs. But a good start.

[Anonymous No.6034039]

>>6032765
I see where you are going, and I can already recommend doing it at half size, because this big the detail clean up is just going to kill you

[Anonymous No.6034043]

>>6032679
Thank you!

[Anonymous No.6034476]

[Anonymous No.6034516]

>>6032661
When i opend i magined the grass would be animated too, but it looks wonderful already
>>6032708
Very heart warming
>>6032765
Id make the cannons wider

[Anonymous No.6034680]

>>6034516
it's rocket launchers

[Anonymous No.6034829]

is it allowed to trace the stuff I did in 3d or is it cheating?

[Anonymous No.6034885]

>>6034829
No one cares what is your workflow, if you make your work correctly no one is going to be able to tell anyways. If you want to use filters here are some tips i can give you: the things you need to watch out for are color count and dither patterns if the picture has too much anti aliasing is a dead give a way that it was made with a filter, the solution is to reduce the colors or sometimes separate the colors on the original drawing to have more control, with a color replacement tool you can also reduce the "steps" of the anti-alias, with respect to dithering i will advice to not use it, there are a lot of dither algorithms but they 9/10 times will look too complex for a human to pull off. And remember then after the filter you are only starting there is a lot of clean up to do if you want it to look good.

[Anonymous No.6034887]

>>6030110
Very comfy

[Anonymous No.6035898]

>>6034037
No, you're absolutely right, I'm barely getting into fundamentals (college hw basically halted that immediately). Do you have any tips on finding light sources and shadows that I could use now

[Anonymous No.6035921]

>>6035898
For a start, imagine the light source coming from the top right, slightly in front. That's kind of a standart position for illustrations often as it gives nice shadows. Honestly the most helpful thing then is to just take your desk lamp and move things into the corresponding position to analyze and understand how their shadows work, and transfer that to drawing.

Generally in pixel art, also study the technique of artists you like/think are doing a good job/masters. That's pretty much the only way to figure out how to attempt some things.

[Anonymous No.6036715]

[Anonymous No.6037438]

[Anonymous No.6037470]

>>6037438
they look like they have smallpox

[Anonymous No.6037557]

>>6028918
Takes me back to childhood, I can hear the Contra sfx.

[Anonymous No.6037693]

Newbie here, looking for feedback

[Anonymous No.6037987]

Trying to remake DoL sprites with every piece having 4 colors. Criticism is highly appreciated.

[Anonymous No.6038055]

>>6037693
The spider looks good but the humans look creepy, i made some examples changing the eyes but look for more sprites on that size to use as reference. And you are using to many colors some of those values are way to close there is no need for them.

[Anonymous No.6038505]

>>6037987
Looks nice. So much so I can't think of any criticisms

[Anonymous No.6038577]

Not finished, but damn I really overestimated how time consuming this would be

[Anonymous No.6038748]

>>6038577
how long did it take you?

[Anonymous No.6038760]

>>6038577
Try to move your darkest shadows a bit into purple, and to reduce your color palette. If you can reuse some colors between the skull and armour it'd be ideal, since the brownish parts are lacking red from the firelight so far.

[Anonymous No.6038764]

>>6037987
Right is a big improvement over left. Quick suggestions I can see at first glance though: Move the mouth one pixel to the right.
Get rid of the tangent line of the bikini top and neck by moving one or two px of the bikini top left line a bit, which will also give her chest more volume. Get rid of the two pixels for her right shoulder or alternatively add another so that they look like a cluster rather than odd AA. Maybe dark blue for her eyebrows rather?
Keep going mate, good job

[Anonymous No.6039395]

Another new drawing this it is a massive automaton based off Huitzil from Darkstalkers. Also I'm thinking about animating it but I am hesitant because of the size

[Anonymous No.6039491]

>>6021806

[Anonymous No.6039542]

>>6030106
does anyone have the updated 2022 edition of Pixel-Logic?

[Anonymous No.6039634]

nvm

[Anonymous No.6039686]

>>6039395
looks really good

[Anonymous No.6040332]

>>6038760
I'll definitely just try to make the palette differently once I'm done with this semester and have more free time

[Anonymous No.6040337]

[Anonymous No.6040349]

Finished this last night, for the price of being tired as fuck today. 33 colors total, I feel it might be a few too many colors.

[Anonymous No.6040351]

>>6040337
You really gotta check your color ramps. The contasts on the mask are all super low yet the ones on the pants very high, and the shoes have way less detail and contrast than the rest to boot. I feel like using outlines would be a good help for you to get a hang of clean-up and contrast, when you feel you mastered those you can get rid of outlines again.

[Anonymous No.6040697]

>>6040351
I'll do it, do you think the issue is that i rely too much on premade color palettes?
But i also want to add these are just pixel dailies, so i have only a day to do them, and i was already getting close to the time limit, i get too ambitious, and that comes to bite me back. Not that excuses my flaws, just thinking about it now I could've used some green to lower the contrast, i think.
>>6040349
UUUGH it so good

[Anonymous No.6040712]

>>6040697
I think that you seem to divide your colors into categories, you have a few separate blues, then reds etc for example. Probably picking some random palettes from lospec that seem ugly to you at first glance would be a good practice, in forcing yourself to make them work you will get some practice in ways of color re-use that don't come easily from intuition. Like finding ways to shade with unusual colors and make them look different in context to keep the palette tight.

And thanks for the compliment! Replied to me twice

[Anonymous No.6040761]

>>6040349
For a picture with 1 hue yeah i would say a ramp with 34 colors it's a little excessive, but honestly it just look like you use posterize on a photo. Less colors make it smaller.

[Anonymous No.6040782]

look half the colors half the resolution and is looking more like pixel art, just a posterize filter without doing any cleanup

[Anonymous No.6040797]

>>6040782
The difference is in the sky tho, as in just color reduced photographs of course can't do clusters. It was an attempt to go at photorealism but have an actually crisp and nice sky. Wanted to do the opposite technique-wise to my previous picture in a few regards.

[Anonymous No.6040800]

>>6040782
>looking more like pixel art
oh, I misread you. "Looking more like pixel art" is a moot point to me when this was an attempt at seeing how far I can go with realistic clouds without using dither.
But ye it's more of an experiment every now and then, I go more painterly and lower color usually, fits most purposes better in the end.

[Anonymous No.6040953]

Sword

[Anonymous No.6041058]

>>6040797
>as in just color reduced photographs of course can't do clusters
im not sure what you mean by this, but i passed again with your pallet on a similar resolution and the filter didn't even use 10 of the colors, 34 is a lot of colors but you do you

[Anonymous No.6041062]

>>6040953
not bad, push yourself by making something crazy; something that you aren't even sure you can make. it may be shit, but you'll learn something from trying, I promise

[Anonymous No.6041071]

>>6041062
Thank you anon, I'm a beginner in pixel art. I'll continue to push harder to make my pixel art look better. In the very least, I'm glad this piece is slightly better than the rest of my twitter posts.

[Anonymous No.6042043]

first time doing pixel art in a long ass time. trying to balance detail and readability. how'd I do?

[Anonymous No.6042190]

>>6037987
here's my criticism
I HECKING LOVE FRECKLES
COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

>>6040337
great face and neck area, nice design. would make for a fine action game enemy.

[Anonymous No.6042545]

I made this art piece 2 years ago in art class for my exam.

It was my first time doing pixel art (it's super fun art style to play with)

[Anonymous No.6042561]

>>6042545
thumbnail looks so good you could sell it as miniature art card

[Anonymous No.6042563]

>>6040953

[Anonymous No.6042843]

[Anonymous No.6043212]

How did they do this 3D sprite thing during the DS era? Is it just low res models ported into the game or is it pixel art? I love the weird uncanny effect it gives off.
Sorry if this is a retarded question stuff like this is probably way below my level but I'm curious

[Anonymous No.6043260]

>>6043212
Low poly 3D model and a fog shader

[Anonymous No.6043274]

>>6023499
love this, thanks for sharing anon

[Anonymous No.6043283]

>>6028411
beautiful

[Anonymous No.6043810]

>>6041058
16 is the keyspot, but would be nice to not go overboard 480p vertically and practice better color picking with blue or red hues the darker the shade, oh and dithering, otherwise it would look like a regular pboto shrinked.

[Anonymous No.6043814]

Did some gba mockup wip

[Anonymous No.6044017]

>>6043814
cute!

[Anonymous No.6044973]

Ever draw a canvas? This one is for GBC-limited art (the empty slots below the canvas are for background and sprite, go read up on how GBC can handle 56 colors at once). I came up with the idea when I realized that Aseprite wasn't able to have a limited palette of this size nor would I be able to have a limited palette per layer/sprite.

Yes I stole the Shining Force 2 menu border and the chessboard texture, sue me, Camelot.

[Anonymous No.6045193]

>>6044973
>would I be able to have a limited palette per layer
true

not true per sprite, although when you close/open the files the palette resets to default , so if you want multiple palettes it's better to do this somewhere on your sprite(hidden layer) and load palette from sprite.
> Aseprite wasn't able to have a limited palette of this size
it does if you refer to the left side charts.
you can have a lot more than 56 colors in a palette and you can also stretch the window to be 8 color wide, if that's your intention.

[Anonymous No.6045394]

At what resolution does pixel art just become regular digital art? Like at some point you can't even tell it's pixelated with intent, no?

[Anonymous No.6046093]

>>6045394
Never, if it's done by manually editing the pixels it remains pixel art even if it's indistinguishable from a photo

[Anonymous No.6047015]

>>6045394
Around the same time a mural becomes a painting.

[Anonymous No.6048616]

Fake screenshots are my hobby

[Anonymous No.6049515]

Rate?

[Anonymous No.6049611]

>>6049515
the light tone should be darker(preference)
the dress doesn't look like it covers the butt when "relaxed"
the torso seems too small (extend 10+ pixels to the right, maybe)

[Anonymous No.6049890]

>>6021806
How do I start? I can barely do regular art and I need to make sprites for an RPG.
Is Krita okay?

[Anonymous No.6050544]

>>6049890
You only need to change a couple of settings first go to brush presets and pick the pixel art brush, then click on one selection tool (like rectangular or freehand) and on the tool options change the mode to pixel selection and uncheck anti-alias lastly go to the transform tool and on the filter option select nearest neighbor.
I recorded this with the record docker on krita and if you look closely on some parts it looks blurry because i forgot to change those two settings and move some things around.

[Anonymous No.6050676]

[Anonymous No.6050938]

>>6050676
Pretty good tomato

[Anonymous No.6051043]

first time giving pixel art a try, I think the cloud and tree came out pretty good, but the mountains are a bit wonky, any advice?

[Anonymous No.6051083]

>>6051043
also, made this little guy, it's kind of a greek hoplite or something

[Anonymous No.6051118]

>>6048616
If you're doing GBC limits, you can only have ten sprites per horizontal line before glitches happen. Just in case you're going purist as possible.

[Anonymous No.6051141]

>>6049890
Personally I started with PDN before deciding to put down a few quid for Aseprite. Pixel art for games is a completely different skillset from digital art. My style involves me sticking to a fixed pallet and working within those limits which forces me to come up with more creative methods to get the details I want. This one for instance was made with Rosy-42. The biggest difference in pixel art at a low scale is that many details are implied. For example, the woman's face is just four pixels and the water is just speckles in darkness that is the same color as the dark sides of the brickwork. Read the tutorials in the OP, especially Saint11's and Sadface_RL's, a chunk of theirs are focused on game art.

The best advice I can give you is "Finish the artwork, even (and especially if) it sucks dick".

[Anonymous No.6051142]

>>6043814
soul

[Anonymous No.6051189]

>>6051043
The shadows of the mountains looks like it has been smeared all over. The tree look ok-ish, you just need to adjust the height.

[Anonymous No.6051836]

>>6051141
not that same person
But where do you usually search up for pallettes and how do you decide which to use?
Also I have a few questions going in my head,
I am creating a a 2d platformer and J want to implement a outfit system
How do I go on this on the art side?
Draw outline of shirts, hair colours, eye colours etc. separately and later merge them?
or is there any simple way?
no bulli pls i am still new to art in general

[Anonymous No.6051878]

>>6051836
>But where do you usually search up for pallettes and how do you decide which to use?
Lospec or I look up sheets on The Spriter's Resource and derive them from that. Here's a present for you, every 15-bit color in one pallet (the reason it's not 16 is because the last bit is used for transparency toggle).
>I am creating a a 2d platformer and J want to implement a outfit system
With great difficulty. Each one would have to be its own sprite that is overlaid on the protagonist sprite. You can get away with color variations but you'll ultimately need a method to generate large amounts of sprites at once and this is beyond my skillset. If you understand code, look at the disassembly of Terraria and the program Mirsario made to generate sprite sheets for armor.

Anything involving animation is seldom done simply, better off asking on gamedev threads on other boards.

[Anonymous No.6051966]

>>6037438
Nicolay is that you ?
Your artstyle remindes me of how a friend of mine draws . he talked about a game project he was making, it was an visual novel set in 50's america

[Anonymous No.6051999]

>>6050544
beautiful

[Anonymous No.6052033]

>>6028411
Ball Chin Frog King, my beloved
Late but excellent work.

[Anonymous No.6052067]

>>6051878
>Lospec or I look up sheets on The Spriter's Resource and derive them from that. Here's a present for you, [...]
oh, interesting, thanks for the pallet and help
>You can get away with color variations but you'll ultimately need a method to generate large amounts of sprites at once
hmm yeah i was thinking the same thing
>If you understand code, look at the disassembly of Terraria and the program Mirsario made to generate sprite sheets for armor.
yeah i guess i was just write program to do it in a simpler way, lookup table and something, well gotta work on it
Again thanks for the tips!

[Anonymous No.6052069]

>>6052067
will just write*

[Anonymous No.6053080]

>>6051966
A VN in 1950's USA? That sounds like a lot of fun, you can DM to me on Twitter if you want to discuss it.

[Anonymous No.6053535]

How do you know what color to use? I mean, how to know is one color of a group of pixels is right or hue, saturation or value shoud be changed a bit? I know it's more subjective and the right color depends on the artist, but still, is there some kind of formula for beginers to color theory so they don't make blatant mistakes in coloring their works?

[Anonymous No.6053545]

>>6042545
is it a requirement to be a libtard to go in to art classes in america or do you become one after joining

[Anonymous No.6053553]

>>6053535
>is there some kind of formula for beginers to color theory so they don't make blatant mistakes in coloring their works?
the only piece of advice that applies in this mechanical manner is about shading, after you've picked your main color: when coloring highlights you want to not only increase the brightness of the color you're using, but also shift it a bit towards the warm region of the color palette, and likewise when applying shadow you want a darker and colder color. in general a big part of coloring well is knowing how the material you're coloring behaves in the real world, if you can capture the shine of metal with bright highlights and solid shadows for example it's going to look good whatever its main color is (in fact if something looks good in greyscale you are already halfway there with coloring well)

[Anonymous No.6053689]

>>6053553
Tried coloring you pic to see if i got it right. But I also made highlights less saturated and shades more saturated. Still don't feel confident about final result and this is not even the first attempt. And btw, what about if my main color was red? What color shoud my hue be shifted towards in that case? Same question about blue since those are warmest and coldest colors.

[Anonymous No.6054066]

>>6030032
It's alright to call something bad without being able to do it better yourself. It's way easier to notice mistakes than make something that's perfect.

>>6030154
Nothing wrong with it if it's something you choose to do, but lot of artists do it either unconsciously or because they can't do anything else or both. People don't look the same so you should try to vary the faces unless it's a distinct stylistic choice to make them all look the same.

[Anonymous No.6054147]

>>6053689
I'll give my take on it while we're at it (I didn't handpick each color, I just used some colors from my prebuilt palette). in my case, I deemed that selling the feeling of shine on the gem was worth using pure white exclusively for it.
>what about if my main color was red?
in this case the tip applies retroactively, to avoid using a 255R and a 255G for your starter colors so that you leave yourself some room to warm/cool colors (which isn't a hard rule, but usually a palette with colors that saturated is for heavily stylized works, meaning that the shading will be nonstandard as well)

[Anonymous No.6054169]

>>6021806

I fucking love Pixel Art, you guys have no idea how much I love this shit, but I'm clueless about how to go about learning it, all the resources in this thread and out there are incomplete...

[Anonymous No.6054351]

>>6054169
Just buy/pirate Pixel Logic

[Anonymous No.6054395]

I learnt how to do pixel art from /ic/.

I wanna get better! Pixel art discords and stuff like that are really elitist and dismissive. Thats why i like only interacting with /pag/

[Anonymous No.6054409]

I think pixel art is easier to make when its done in one of those retro top down or sidescroller styles.

Making a digital piece with a "pixel art filter" is harder to make pretty. But its still do-able!

I havent managed to do it yet...

[Anonymous No.6054419]

I made some colourful tiles! Each one is 162 and has 4 colours

My fav ones are the water and dirt tiles

[Anonymous No.6054482]

>>6054395
>>6054409
I don't think that anyone here would really care if you use a filter, but that is not the case on a discord server. A good way to check if you are achieving the look is posting there and seeing if someone call you out, but for now there are still things that look out of place.
Your biggest problem is that you added dithering on the filter. If you wanted the details on her belly to show instead of adding dithering, a better solution would have been to change the contrast or the gamma until it shows.
Also, the resolution is pretty big which is fine but with big resolutions it is better to reduce the color count to have a more oekaki look, or you can also reduce the size and keep the color count.

[Anonymous No.6054902]

>>6054169
>>6054351

>>6030106
it comes up every thread, might as well add it to the OP next time.
>>6054419
nice color palettes and details, well done. I think the standard in 2d games is 32x32 if you care about that.

[Anonymous No.6055260]

Can't wait to be done with finals, i really want to test this
>>6053553
Advice myself

[Anonymous No.6055815]

Found a template and read up on Aseprite's tilemap tools. It needs a lot of work on the user-friendly side but I bashed this out in like 15 minutes.

[Anonymous No.6055828]

>>6055815
https://opengameart.org/content/seamless-tileset-template
Here's the template.

[Anonymous No.6055852]

>>6054351
>Just buy/pirate Pixel Logic
>>6054902

Thank you so much anons, I just torrented Pixel Logic, and this book is really cool.

[Anonymous No.6055858]

>>6043814

>Sakura Card Captor

That brings me good memories, thank you anon

[Anonymous No.6055875]

>>6021806

Can I use a mouse to draw instead of a tablet?

[Anonymous No.6055892]

>>6055875
You pretty much have to use a mouse for individual pixels, but lay in and blocking is easier with a tablet, not impossible with a mouse, just frustrating

[Anonymous No.6055900]

Any way to do animation with "layers"? I want to make a couple of 2-3 frame movement loops on a piece, but then have a linear 20+ frame action on top of that, without having to merge its frames with the small loops. For example

>simple 2-3 frame loop of sea waves going back and forth
>simple 4-5 frame loop of water mill revolving
>in the same scene character is doing an action that takes 20 frames like walking from one end of the screen to the other while the waves loop in the background

I don't want to merge the frames because I want to be able to edit them in a modular way

[Anonymous No.6055959]

>>6055900
As far as i know, software that can do this are: Aseprite and Promotion (both paid). For free Krita, Opentoons (you will need a tutorial, but it has the best timeline) and pixelorama.

[Anonymous No.6056296]

>>6055959
Thanks, I'll check them out

[Anonymous No.6057068]

>spend 50 hours on a piece
>don't like it anymore

[Anonymous No.6057124]

>>6057068
you should be happy, your visual skill improved in the duration of that drawing.

[Anonymous No.6057982]

It's been a long while since i'm here.
Is the schizo that spam his crazy "pixel art" drawings still around?

[Anonymous No.6058022]

>>6057982
Yes, but he doesn't really post here, he usually has his own thread

[Anonymous No.6059866]

Is this a pixel art?

[Anonymous No.6059869]

>>6059866
if you were able to shrink it to 80x80 without losing information, yes. but you can't.
some squares have more than 1 color, and you have the grid lines, where pixel art is just the pixel data. it's closer to a mosaic.

[Anonymous No.6060344]

So I have making pixel art for about 2 years now and I decided to make some improvements on some older sprites that made. What do you guys think?

[Anonymous No.6060347]

>>6060344
Older versions for comparison

[Anonymous No.6060366]

>>6060344
Definitely an improvement imo, great job

[Anonymous No.6062429]

>>6060344
They all look better except for the last guy, on the old one it was clearly a mechanical chair now I don't really know what it is.

[Anonymous No.6064420]

>>6021806
Bump

[Anonymous No.6065257]

One final final and I'll be putting more time into pixel art

[Anonymous No.6066555]

kept small on purpose

[Anonymous No.6066557]

nvm

[Anonymous No.6067856]

>>6066557
also nvm.

[Anonymous No.6068703]

[Anonymous No.6068747]

>>6066557
>>6067856
Not sure if schizo or trying to use machine learning to generate tilesets.

[Anonymous No.6070012]

>>6068703
lewd

[Anonymous No.6070469]

>>6021806
source on pic related? looks comfy

[Anonymous No.6073257]

>>6066555
nice trembling

[Anonymous No.6073744]

>>6022421
nice ,what resolution you worked on?

[Anonymous No.6074294]

>finish coloring the model
>use photoshop to darken/lighten areas
>reduce amount of palette variation back to 10-20 colors and the darkened areas become samey-looking shadows
Are there faster or more optimal methods of adding mass-shadowing than this?

[Anonymous No.6074350]

[Anonymous No.6074366]

a wario sprite i did a while ago

[Anonymous No.6074368]

>>6074350
Very nice

[Anonymous No.6074370]

>>6074366
This is also really dope

[Anonymous No.6074443]

[Anonymous No.6075934]

>>6025559
Complete ass shit, by this logic every oldschool video game isn't pixel art because if you saw all of the stage assets in full on screen it wouldn't be pixel art because now the pixels are "too small"

Note: If there's no anti aliasing, it's pixel art. It can't be any clearer, alias means pixelated.

[Anonymous No.6075958]

>>6043814
Not washed out enough.

[Anonymous No.6076136]

>>6075934
false opinion, pixel art commonly uses anti aliasing, but as hand placed pixels, not with an automatic algorithm.

[Anonymous No.6076544]

>>6074366
I always thought you'd have to use a darker color of the same hue to antialias, but you proven me wrong in my assumption, great job.

[Anonymous No.6077733]

How do I into pixel art bros? I wanna make a game, but I don't know how to pixel art, and I'm basically beg at drawing as well.
Also, I don't know how to paint/draw landscapes ;__; I need to learn so goddamn much before I can actually produce the stuff I want

[Anonymous No.6077799]

>>6077733
patience, read the stuff in OP, practice a lot. copying tutorials is no shame and will drill in the foundations you can apply in an original manner later.

[Anonymous No.6078665]

Wanted to make my own fantasy sword
I probably should have used less colors, and a ref, but whatever. I had fun

[Anonymous No.6079286]

I had a clever idea this morning in order to practice pixel art
Recreating pokemon sprites while adding my own touch to it (can add features, dithering, use another palette and so on..)
I get to practice fundamentals and apply what I've learned directly to the source of my learning

[Anonymous No.6080678]

>>6079286
thread seems pretty dead right now. I'll keep it alive..

[Anonymous No.6080713]

Cursed image

[Anonymous No.6081083]

>>6080713
had fun

[Anonymous No.6082245]

Went kinda ham on this one.
I guess this is my thread now

[Anonymous No.6082462]

trying rando shit when im bored

[Anonymous No.6082534]

More practice, building on the wacky design I established earlier >>6082245
. Trying to figure out how to horns

[Anonymous No.6082546]

Myst

[Anonymous No.6084027]

bigsel ard

[Anonymous No.6084230]

How do I get good at pixel art

[Anonymous No.6084253]

>>6084230
See
>>6054351
>>6021806
Also reference stuff from spriter's resource

[Anonymous No.6084284]

>>6084253
I've read every page of pixel logic. I understand concepts behind the art but it didn't tell me how to get better

[Anonymous No.6084344]

>>6084230
Pixel logic is not going to teach you how to draw, people hate being told this, but pixel art is not some magical new thing, it is just drawing. You need to learn the fundamentals like everyone else. Pixel art is more similar to painting than to making line art, so i would start with some lessons on digital painting like Marco Bucci on youtube, and if you don't Marco then try vilppu. This may be cliché, especially on /ic, but even the guy of pixel logic will tell you this.
And I know some people are going to say that copying sprites will teach you, but I wholeheartedly disagree. I'm not saying that making master studies is useless because that is not true, but the usefulness of them is greatly diminish when making pixel art because coping a sprite is trivial. Any beginner can do it perfectly just by counting how many pixels a line has, for example.

[Anonymous No.6084379]

>>6084344
So how the fuck do I learn to draw?

[Anonymous No.6084387]

What

[Anonymous No.6084476]

I started another piece, who knows if I'll finish it.
I like the face I designed, that's a first(kinda).
try'na learn about drawing folds I guess. can apply to other materials like clothes later.

[Anonymous No.6084509]

Critique? Gotta leave the house for a bit, going to finish when I get back.

[Anonymous No.6084720]

>>6084509
Back, update

[Anonymous No.6084769]

>>6084720

[Anonymous No.6085059]

>>6084769
nothing to critique imo, great piece.
on a second thought maybe the hair could have a bit more texture and flow but it's personal preference.

[Anonymous No.6085067]

>>6084769
arms looks abit orangutangy

[Anonymous No.6085921]

Out of curiosity, is it actually alright if I ask for simple, basic bitch, made-for-retards prompts in this thread for what to draw? I'm literally only now starting to try doing some pixel art stuff after watching various stuff on youtube and reading a few tutorials but I am generally horrible at starting stuff out on my own until I get my feet wet with the very basics. I'm talking like, pure kindergarden tier stuff because I am have never learned to draw shit in my life so I don't even have any experience with that to fall back on.

[Anonymous No.6085964]

>>6085921
If you want prompts or ideas of what to draw i would recommend doing dailies (from twiter or lowspec)or if you want to draw game ready assets, i would recommend you to go to itch io or some other website with free tilesets (pic realted was taken from itch) pick one and try to create your own version of it. I don't think spamming the thread with simple drawings is a good idea because no one is going to give you feedback on them. I think it would be better to try to compile a bunch of drawings and then ask feedback on that.

[Anonymous No.6085987]

>>6085964
Ooh, I didn't realize there were dailies stuff on twitter, at least more basic and beginner friendly stuff. The one account I saw was more of a vague setting prompt than anything else which seemed a bit too advance for me. Link me if you can, please. And didn't realize itch was showing off tilesets from projects, thanks anon

[Anonymous No.6085998]

wip

[Anonymous No.6086001]

>>6085987
@Pixel_Dailies on twitter
lospec()com/dailies/ they post on discord

[Anonymous No.6086034]

made a Cristina today

[Anonymous No.6086563]

>>6085998
why hello there emanon

[Anonymous No.6087584]

>>6084769
two revisions, also a new wip coming up

[Anonymous No.6087585]

>>6087584

[Anonymous No.6087591]

[Anonymous No.6087596]

[Anonymous No.6087598]

[Anonymous No.6087603]

>>6087598
Wow nice animations

[Anonymous No.6087825]

>>6087585

[Anonymous No.6087827]

[Anonymous No.6087838]

>>6042545
i guess you would've failed the exam if you didn't blackwash european art

[Anonymous No.6088262]

>>6087827
feels too much foreshortening on the left arm.

good job with the work so far!

[Anonymous No.6088293]

>>6084344
What do you think about this with respect to voxel art? If I'm working in an environment like that of Minecraft's (yes, I know) in which something like perspective doesn't really exist because I don't have to project a 3d environment onto a 2d plane, what kind of path do you think should be taken in order to learn and improve as opposed to traditional two dimensional art?

[Anonymous No.6088333]

>>6084284
Do art, do it again, keep doing it, and finish a piece no matter how fucking bad it is. A good way to start is to restrict yourself to say a gameboy color or NES pallet. Realize that many details in pixel art are implied and not explicit.

[Anonymous No.6088436]

Asperyte, Graf2x, or Pro Motion NG?

[Anonymous No.6088489]

>>6088436
>Asperyte
kek

[Anonymous No.6088749]

>>6088293
Different medium, I don't know
>>6088436
At the moment, aseprite is the most popular software and that comes with tons of tutorials and add-ons made by third parties (like exports to engines or things like that). In terms of functionality, promotion has more features but it is a really weird software, you really will need to google how to do even basic stuff. And Graf2x, i don't really want to badmouth free software but let's just say that is a really old school software that is familiar for people who have been doing this for a long time.

In general all of this are really awkward pieces of software especially if you come from things like photoshop or CSP. So if this is your case i will recommend using the software that you already use, just create a brush without anti aliasing and use it for erasing and drawing. And only when you need features like animation, grids for isometric or color indexing start to look for other software.

[Anonymous No.6088806]

>>6088436
paint.NET

[Anonymous No.6089917]

WIP progress, right to left because it didn't work as I planned. right is not my illustration and is after a certain pokemon.

[Anonymous No.6090340]

[Anonymous No.6092635]

something simple

[Anonymous No.6092660]

something simple

[Anonymous No.6093201]

I unpacked and made gifs from a bunch of hinako assets, she's a fighting game character.
there's also some VFX if anyone's interested.
https://www67.zippyshare.com/v/mhkrHSbN/file.html

[Anonymous No.6093211]

>>6092660
Same energy >>6088996

[Anonymous No.6094050]

light reflectopm on the claw should probably be slimmer

[Anonymous No.6095398]

Spent too long on this, still needs some fixes here and there

[Anonymous No.6095716]

>>6095398
ONE vibes (I consider this a compliment)
a mangaka if you don't know who it is.

[Anonymous No.6096180]

beginner here I did this a while back

[Anonymous No.6096185]

>>6096180
fuck how do I make this bigger am I retarded?

[Anonymous No.6096572]

>>6096185
What program are you using

>>6095716
Thanks, I love one so I'll take it as a compliment

[Anonymous No.6097124]

[Anonymous No.6098880]

my main effort was to indicate shape via light, i'd appreciate criticism.

[Anonymous No.6100582]

[Anonymous No.6101117]

I feel like I make my heads too circular, usually it's fine for cartoony lower res faces that need a little more space for expressions but sometimes I do it for high res, i think it is especially noticeable if it's tilted

how could I remedy it?

[Anonymous No.6101488]

>>6021806
Next thread under # COMMUNITIES add
https://spritedatabase.net/

Can find some complete sprites sheets than can't be found on spriters resource there.

[Anonymous No.6101846]

>>6101117
In a higher res you should have more space to work with so it should (theoretically) be easier to shave down the chin a bit into a narrow/wider v shape. Even if it's just a few pixels deep it makes a big difference. It's just going to be a lot of trial and error.

Personally, tend to try making my heads a bit more bean-shaped when in 3/4ths perspective to give the mouth some space while keeping the top a bit flatter.

Phoneposting or I'd show you what I mean visually with my own stuff, but I found something similar online.

[Anonymous No.6102106]

[Anonymous No.6102261]

nvm

[Anonymous No.6102457]

>>6021806
how the FUCK is Clip studio unable to make any symmetrical ellipse at low resolutions. Like what is even happening here. The Selection and the figure tool both give the same infuriating results.
Does anyone know how to fix this?

[Anonymous No.6102604]

>>6102457
Don't have any fixes but I know your pain. I swapped over to asesprite after not liking what I was getting from CSP or GIMP tools. They're generally great but the extra features become more hinderance than help at the pixel-by-pixel level from my experience.

Trying to replicate art I like as I find it to get back into practice. Shading is especially hard, I consistently leave it either too subtle or way too hamfisted.

[Anonymous No.6103203]

can and should i make pixel animations in photoshop? i want to get started on learning pixel art and animations, but i've already mastered the interface for photoshop and i don't know if i need to use and learn the software in the OP to get the best quality.

[Anonymous No.6103614]

>>6103203
I was on the same situation before and i have tried all of these programs before, and let me tell you, out of the programs on the op the only one that has more animation features than photoshop (That is to say more than the bare minimum to make and animation) is aseprite.

I had some experience before with animate, so i try to look for something similar but for pixel art most programs are really bare bones. In my opinion, if animation is important, there are basically 2 options:
Krita
Pros: hands down the best timeline, layers, is easy to animate on 2s-3s,moving frames and adjusting timings is easy, and you can animate on fps. Which is the standard so you can use animator resources. Also has some basic twining that can be useful for testing walk in circles and stuff like that. Free. Great onion skin.
Cons: It will feel really awkward to use because the programs has a really weird eraser, weird mask layers, weird transform tools for multiple frames, even if you change the shortcuts the program just behave differently. Not aimed at pixel art, so you will need to change some settings to work on pixel art.
Aseprite
Pros :has layers, color indexing, you can get it close enough to the shortcuts on photoshop, so it feels familiar. Hold frame.
cons: Ugly as sin. Paid. Timeline doesn't have basic features like removing a single frame for just one layer. Use ms instead of fps (as far as i know, the only animation program that do this)

There is also pixelorama that has similar animation features than aseprite but is missing a “hold frame” feature, so is a little odd to use. This is hard to explain on text but let's say that you are on krita and have a drawing that is exposed for 5 frames, if you need to make a correction you only do it on 1 drawing, and it updates on those 5 frames. On pixelorama you make the correction and then copy and paste the drawing on the other 4 frames.

[Anonymous No.6104180]

>>6103614
What about Pro Motion NG?

[Anonymous No.6104710]

>>6104180
As basic as it gets, you have onion skin and layers. Same as piskel, graphicsgale, firealpaca etc. And that programs is just a mess, i was honestly surprised that it doesn't have a lasso tool.

[Anonymous No.6104834]

Alright, so this is probably a dumb noob issue, but I am having really big fucking problems with understanding dithering.
I want to make a dawn/sunset from/to night transition and while I think the day/night dithering looks at least decent (please note that I am severely limited by the palette I have to use) I just can't get the transition right.
I have tried many different ways already and this was on its way to "click", but it kinda didn't.

so tl;dr: How to properly apply dithering on those "curved" transitions or just how to make this look nice?

[Anonymous No.6105744]

[Anonymous No.6106154]

Nevermind.

[Anonymous No.6106893]

Gen 7's Rainbow Rocket Grunts. Please critique, Pokemon's selective black outline in some cases are a mystery to me. Sometimes they appear to occupy the darkest part of the sprite in terms of shading, other times they seem to clarify the more confusing adjacent regions, they seem unnecessary in some cases, but they're there anyways.

[Anonymous No.6107210]

>>6104834
Try Index Painting. Complex dithering patterns usually are made this way.
https://youtu.be/7Q36EyvaYG8

[Anonymous No.6107495]

>>6104710
lol?

[Anonymous No.6107655]

>>6089917
Oh shit, isn't your reference there by inawon?

[Anonymous No.6107684]

>>6107495
am i missing something? i just downloaded the beta and i don't see anything else for animation. But they finally added selection tools, nice.

[Anonymous No.6107890]

[Anonymous No.6108774]

[Anonymous No.6110439]

[Anonymous No.6110558]

anyone got any topdown recs?
I don't want to be ripping off pokemon. It's very tempting, but I think I can go past the 2heads characters.

[Anonymous No.6110835]

>>6110558
FF
GTA2

[Anonymous No.6110860]

>>6110439
Clownfag?

[Anonymous No.6110865]

>>6110835
Minish cap
Cadence of hyrule
Boktai
Super star saga

Those in my opinion are the best top down pixel art to pull from

[Anonymous No.6110896]

>>6104834
Desaturate your colors
Don't use pure black
You're transition will look 10x good

[Anonymous No.6111101]

>>6021806
Sorry, but got nowhere else to ask.
Would a pixel artist be offended if offered to pay 1$ per tile in a 16 bit tileset? Not asking for Metal Slug level of detail.

[Anonymous No.6111250]

>>6110860
it is i

[Anonymous No.6111677]

>>6111101
at the level of detail you posted I estimate <=10 unique tiles an hour which is poverty wages, I don't think you'll do well with that.

[Anonymous No.6111762]

I know this is vague as fuck but I have to preface that I haven't done pixel art in years and I understand I'll have to do a lot of practice to pick this direction up...
BUT.
My ideal project will look like grandia. I've always adored the game and I'm refinding my love for it. Does anyone know where I can find asset rips to study? Or know any similar styles in media?

[Anonymous No.6111777]

>>6111677
Thanks, getting an idea about tile per hour makes this much easier to calculate with.

[Anonymous No.6111810]

>>6111762
https://www.spriters-resource.com/playstation/grandia/
Grandia doesn't have much, but there are other sets to study here. Hope it helps!

[Anonymous No.6111854]

>>6110835
>>6110865
Bless you.

Do you guys use Spine for animating or do I just go with Aesprite's way?

[Anonymous No.6112102]

>>6111854
I've never heard of Spine being used for pixel art, but more for vector graphics. It'd probably be better to use aesprite

[Anonymous No.6112186]

>>6111854
You can use tools like Spine Pro or spriter to do MGS-style rigging. Here's an example of Appleheck's work using a mix of hand animation and spine from his thread:
https://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=69966.0

[Anonymous No.6112196]

>>6112186
wtf I meant MS/Metal Slug, not MGS

[Anonymous No.6112233]

>>6112186
I believe dragon marked for death also used this, and the game looks great.

[Anonymous No.6112427]

>>6111810
Thank you very much! Even having just a little bit of an archived collection of assets is helpful when compared to me just taking hundreds of screenshots :')
I really appreciate you anon thank you very much

[Anonymous No.6113478]

[Anonymous No.6115098]

test

[Anonymous No.6115116]

>>6112427
Your welcome! Your request reminded me to look it up. I love Legend of Mana's style so that gave me a chance to study it.

[Anonymous No.6115222]

Is there any reliable way to clean up pixel JPEGs?
I'm thinking about removing number of colors, but it might take a lot of time to guess correct number of colors

[Anonymous No.6115228]

>>6103614
>Aseprite
>Paid
Just compile it's yourself and give fuckers zero pennies for being fags with license
https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite/blob/main/INSTALL.md

[Anoynmuos !!ApJFGWLzVDp No.6115230]

>>6087596
Wow, that's cool.

[Anonymous No.6115269]

Moved on from drawing 3D shapes to shading
Light is supposed to be from the bottom left
How does it look?

[Anonymous No.6115527]

[Anonymous No.6115556]

why can't I fucking draw

[Anonymous No.6116579]

https://i.natgeofe.com/n/4f5aaece-3300-41a4-b2a8-ed2708a0a27c/domestic-dog_thumb_4x3.jpg
How did it come out?

[Anonymous No.6117054]

do modern day pixel art manga or webtoons exist?

[Anonymous No.6117146]

>>6117054
I only know about this on the manga side
https://comic.pixiv.net/works/7646

[Anonymous No.6117334]

>>6116579
You can most definitely tell it's a dog, it reads just fine in that department, the next step would be to find a palette and fill it out

[Anonymous No.6117458]

Does anyone know of a way to emulate a DMD? I wanted to try making some images in the style of a pinball display but they don't look quite right raw.

[Anonymous No.6118011]

>>6115527
Aww I saw yours in pixel dailies, great job

[Anonymous No.6118012]

[Anonymous No.6118022]

[Anonymous No.6118033]

[Anonymous No.6118034]

[Anonymous No.6118036]

[Anonymous No.6118058]

>>6118033
I don't know what you were going for but that looks like a wet turd
>>6118012
very nice

[Anonymous No.6118064]

>>6118011
Thanks, man.
>>6118012
I really like this piece.

[Anonymous No.6118311]

cactus

[Anonymous No.6118610]

When using Aesprite, is there a way to delete everything inside a shape/object and just leave the outline?

[Anonymous No.6118938]

>>6118610
Hm, the only thing i think you could do is use FX to create an outline for inside in a different color and then select the inside and delete

[Anonymous No.6119704]

New thread?