NOTE- I WILL BE ADDING MISSING PICTURES SOON Hello!, I'm Analog and it's time for a pixel art tutorial, these are some basics and also some little tips and tricks I have learned in my time making pixel art! Without further ado let me get into the tutorial. The Basics The most important things you can know! 1: Do not use over-saturated colours! (the preset red on MS Paint is an example of an over-saturated colour) 2: Try not to double up outlines, keep them one pixel wide or, in Starbound's case, no outlines at all. 3: Choose colours with a good amount of contrast this can mean the difference between professionalism and mediocrity. 4: Try to get a more limited amount of shades, such as 4,5,6 or 7 shades for a particular colour. 5: Light source! always provide a light source on your object, this helps make it more realistic as well as avoiding the nasty pillow shading I'll mention a bit later on. Contrast Contrast is fundamental as stated above, It means the colours are easily discernible from each-other Here is an example of a badly chosen assortment of shades See how the colours blend in very smoothly? well we don't want that, pixel art is about Jagged Precision. Here is an example of a shade collection of proper contrast. The colours stand out, this is what we want. Now that we have that covered let's move on to the next part of the tutorial. Shading styles that are not recommended Pillow shading, a great evil committed by beginner Pixel Artists, it bases the light source in the middle of the object being shaded, as if a torch was shining onto the front of it, we do not want this. I am not ashamed to say that when I started Pixel Art I did indeed pillow shade, but you will learn quickly that there are far better shading styles then this. An example of Pillow Shading- Even with our fine tuned pallet of colours the image is still sub-standard. Another beginners mistake is Gradient Shading this uses progressively darker colours that far exceed the viable amount of colours mainly used in pixel art, it relys on a tool to create one pixel across lines that get increasingly darker/lighter to produce a special effect, although this is used extensively in digital art, it has no place in Pixel Art. An example of Gradient Shading- Now with the negativity aspect out of the way, I can get into the next phase, Line Art Line art is just as important as shading, an neither can work without each other, adequately balanced Shading and Line art skills are essential. Curves- Start out with one pixel, and produce increasingly longer lines, then mirror it and you have a curve Diagonals- Make every pixel line even make every diagonal have a fixed gradient. (Gradient in this case meaning how steep it is), If you want a steep line Have a 2/1 gradient, rising two pixels and horizontally moving one pixel, if you want a balanced diagonal, use a 1/1 gradient, rising one, moving horizontally one, if you want a more gentle gradient, use a 1/2 gradient. Try not to deviate from the gradient. If you didn't understand any of that, then look at this picture, It will explain. Dynamic Line art- The act of making the line art dynamic.. obviously, this is the art of making a object's line art a lot more realistic, it takes a long time to master, trust me, but if you get this mastered as well as the shading aspect, you can create the most brilliant pixel art. Here is an example of a mild type of dynamic line art. Before= Looks boring right?, Well switch it up a bit! After Nice! Dithering (also known as checkerboard shading) This is a widely known and used pixel art technique used by a lot of great pixel artists, it is used when you want a smoother transition of colours, it makes it seem like there is more colours then used from far away, and looks absolutely amazing when used it is used by placing colours in a checkerboard pattern, not letting the same colour touch , and it blends the colours together really nicely. Here is an example of dithering. Pretty neat huh? Now here comes the fun stuff, once you have the shading and line art covered you can start adding some nice looking special effects that add depth and flair to your pieces of pixel art, here are a few I've picked up on during my time making pixel art Dynamic metal effect- This is used on pixel lines, the area in the inside being the filling and the lines either side being outlines, start in the middle of your piece of metal and shade it a very light colour, then on adjacent sides of the highlight, put increasingly darker colours, this should create a shine effect, shown here Shiny! The Almighty sparkle effect - An effect patented by me.. I probably didn't make it up but I use it like it's mine anyway, Basically you start with a central point a very light coloured single pixel, on all four sides of it place darker pixels, and so on and so forth, if you want an example of this in action, check out my profile logo (the chevron) Good Luck with your Pixel Art! (P.S I'm probably from a different country then most of you, so I spell it as "colour" sorry for that) And as always if you want to contact me just add me on twitter @Abitras!
Incredibly helpful for anyone looking to get started (or advance their skills) in pixel art. While I don't draw myself, I know many users will appreciate this. Also, requesting sticky for OP.
Another thing to point out; Anti-aliasing It's the act of blending the lineart with the image's colors in order to add more space for detail, making lines even smoother, and be greatly reduces contrast where it is not needed. Normally, people tend to think it removes the feeling of pixel-art; not entirely. Usually, cause of that problem is due to a messy color choice. Anti-aliasing can work perfectly with as little colors as possible. People say it causes transparency beyond the pixel-art's lineart. That is true, but can be avoided. Simply do not do it outside the border :U
Many thanks for these tips TC! I'm Bookmarking this Thread to reference them till I get more hang of this! ^_^
Psst... Reminder: We're still eagerly anticipating the Demo Pics... some of the Tips in the OP are still hard to picture in my head.
