Live Preview | Static Preview 1 | Install with Theme Garden |Ā Code | GuideĀ
Hi! I know nobody asked for this but here is theĀ revamp of my old themeĀ āMagical DoReMiā that is inspired in the animeĀ āOjamajo Doremiā. The theme comes with new cool customization features and more improvments.
General Features:
Responsive: looks good in all screen sizes.
Navigation Menu is the first Magical Tap from Ojamajo Doremi, if you hover the circle buttons with the cursor an icon will appear.
Custom Background: it can be an image or color, and you can change the repeat behaviour, position and size of the background.
Customization for all colors on the theme!
Choose custom icons for the menu.
Make the icons stay always visible.
Rainbow effect tittle (you can disable it).
Choose between seven cute fonts, and you can choose a different font for the title and for the posts.
Change fonts sizes.
Four custom links (in the menu).
Nice musical cursor (you can disable it).
Choose between one or two columns layout.
Popup window with a mini about section and a infinite tags and links list.
Search Tab.
And more! Check out the customization guide.
Notes
If you donāt add an image in the popup the text will just adapt.
In mobile version the tap will position on the top of the page, and the icons will be shown by default.
Iāll try to upload this theme to the Theme Garden, hope it gets approved! Meanwhile you can install it with the code.
Credits
Basecode by @seyche
All icons are from cappuccicons.com by @suiomi
Lovely multicolor dots border made by my friend Daniel Dorantes
NPF posts support by @glenthemes
Full list of credits in the code.
If you have any questions or something is not working well please send me a message.
And if you like this theme please reblog and like! :)
PS: More new themes and revamps are coming finally!
Hello, my name is Tofu and I'm a professional pixel artist. I have been supporting myself with freelance pixel art since 2020, when I was let go from my job during the pandemic.
My progress, from 2017 to 2024. IMO the only thing that really matters is time and effort, not some kind of natural talent for art.
This guide will not be comprehensive, as nobody should be expected to read allat. Instead I will lean heavily on my own experience, and share what worked for me, so take everything with a grain of salt. This is a guide, not a tutorial. Cheers!
š¹ Do I need money?
NO!!! Pixel art is one of the most accessible mediums out there.
I still use a mouse because I prefer it to a tablet! You won't be at any disadvantage here if you can't afford the best hardware or software.
Because our canvases are typically very small, you don't need a good PC to run a good brush engine or anything like that.
āØDid you know? One of the most skilled and beloved pixel artists uses MS PAINT! Wow!!
š¹ What software should I use?
Here are some of the most popular programs I see my friends and peers using.
Stars show how much I recommend the software for beginners! ā
š° Paid options:
āāā Aseprite (for PC) - $19.99
This is what I and many other pixel artists use. You may find when applying to jobs that they require some knowledge of Aseprite. Since it has become so popular, companies like that you can swap raw files between artists.
Aseprite is amazingly customizable, with custom skins, scripts and extensions on Itch.io, both free and paid.
If you have ever used any art software before, it has most of the same features and should feel fairly familiar to use. It features a robust animation suite and a tilemap feature, which have saved me thousands of hours of labour in my work. The software is also being updated all the time, and the developers listen to the users. I really recommend Aseprite!
ā Photoshop (for PC) - Monthly $$
A decent option for those who already are used to the PS interface. Requires some setup to get it ready for pixel-perfect art, but there are plenty of tutorials for doing so.
Animation is also much more tedious on PS which you may want to consider before investing time!
āā ProMotion NG (for PC) - $19.00
An advanced and powerful software which has many features Aseprite does not, including Colour Cycling and animated tiles.
āāā PixquareĀ (for iOS) - $7.99 - $19.99
Probably the best app available for iPad users, in active development, with new features added all the time.
Look! My buddy Jon recommends it highly, and uses it often.
One cool thing about Pixquare is that it takes Aseprite raw files! Many of my friends use it to work on the same project, both in their office and on the go.
ā Procreate (for iOS) - $12.99
If you have access to Procreate already, it's a decent option to get used to doing pixel art. It does however require some setup. Artist Pixebo is famously using Procreate, and they have tutorials of their own if you want to learn.
š Free options:
āāā Libresprite (for PC)
Libresprite is an alternative to Aseprite. It is very, very similar, to the point where documentation for Aseprite will be helpful to Libresprite users.
āā Pixilart (for PC and mobile)
A free in-browser app, and also a mobile app! It is tied to the website Pixilart, where artists upload and share their work. A good option for those also looking to get involved in a community.
āā Dotpict (for mobile)
Dotpict is similar to Pixilart, with a mobile app tied to a website, but it's a Japanese service. Did you know that in Japanese, pixel art is called 'Dot Art'?
Dotpict can be a great way to connect with a different community of pixel artists! They also have prompts and challenges often.
š¹ So I got my software, now what?
ā½Nice! Now it's time for the basics of pixel art.
ā WAIT ā Before this section, I want to add a little disclaimer. All of these rules/guidelines can be broken at will, and some 'no-nos' can look amazing when done intentionally.
The pixel-art fundamentals can be exceedingly helpful to new artists, who may feel lost or overwhelmed by choice. But if you feel they restrict you too harshly, don't force yourself! At the end of the day it's your art, and you shouldn't try to contort yourself into what people think a pixel artist 'should be'. What matters is your own artistic expression. šš
ā½Phew! With that out of the way...
šø"The Rules"
There are few hard 'rules' of pixel art, mostly about scaling and exporting. Some of these things will frequently trip up newbies if they aren't aware, and are easy to overlook.
š¹Scaling method
There are a couple ways of scaling your art. The default in most art programs, and the entire internet, is Bi-linear scaling, which usually works out fine for most purposes. But as pixel artists, we need a different method.
Both are scaled up x10. See the difference?
On the left is scaled using Bilinear, and on the right is using Nearest-Neighbor. We love seeing those pixels stay crisp and clean, so we use nearest-neighbor.Ā
(Most pixel-art programs have nearest-neighbor enabled by default! So this may not apply to you, but it's important to know.)
š¹Mixels
Mixels are when there are different (mixed) pixel sizes in the same image.
Here I have scaled up my art- the left is 200%, and the right is 150%. Yuck!
As we can see, the "pixel" sizes end up different. We generally try to scale our work by multiples of 100 - 200%, 300% etc. rather than 150%. At larger scales however, the minute differences in pixel sizes are hardly noticeable!
Mixels are also sometimes seen when an artist scales up their work, then continues drawing on it with a 1 pixel brush.
Many would say that this is not great looking! This type of pixels can be indicative of a beginner artist. But there are plenty of creative pixel artists out there who mixels intentionally, making something modern and cool.
š¹Saving Your Files
We usually save our still images as .PNGs as they donāt create any JPEG artifacts or loss of quality. It's a little hard to see here, but there are some artifacts, and it looks a little blurry. It also makes the art very hard to work with if we are importing a JPEG.
For animations .GIF is good, but be careful of the 256 colour limit. Try to avoid using too many blending mode layers or gradients when working with animations. If you arenāt careful, your animation could flash afterwards, as the .GIF tries to reduce colours wherever it can. It doesnāt look great!
Here's an old piece from 2021 where I experienced .GIF lossiness, because I used gradients and transparency, resulting in way too many colours.
š¹Pixel Art Fundamentals - Techniques and Jargon
āāConfused about Jaggies? Anti-Aliasing? Banding? Dithering? THIS THREAD is for youāā
As far as I'm concerned, this is THE tutorial of all time for understanding pixel art. These are techniques created and named by the community of people who actually put the list together, some of the best pixel artists alive currently. Please read it!!
šøHow To Learn
Okay, so you have your software, and you're all ready to start. But maybe you need some more guidance? Try these tutorials and resources! It can be helpful to work along with a tutorial until you build your confidence up.
āā Pixel Logic (A Digital Book) - $10
A very comprehensive visual guide book by a very skilled and established artist in the industry. I own a copy myself.
āāā StudioMiniBoss - free
A collection of visual tutorials, by the artist that worked on Celeste! When starting out, if I got stuck, I would go and scour his tutorials and see how he did it.
ā Lospec Tutorials - free
A very large collection of various tutorials from all over the internet. There is a lot to sift through here if you have the time.
āāā Cyangmou's Tutorials - free (tipping optional)
Cyangmou is one of the most respected and accomplished modern pixel artists, and he has amassed a HUGE collection of free and incredibly well-educated visual tutorials.
He also hosts an educational stream every week on Twitch called 'pixelart for beginners'.
āāā Youtube Tutorials - free
There are hundreds, if not thousands of tutorials on YouTube, but it can be tricky to find the good ones.
My personal recommendations are MortMort, Brandon, and AdamCYounis- these guys really know what they're talking about!
šøWhere To Post
Outside of just regular socials, Twitter, Tumblr, Deviantart, Instagram etc, there are a few places that lean more towards pixel art that you might not have heard of.
ā Lospec
Lospec is a low-res focused art website. Some pieces get given a 'monthly masterpiece' award. Not incredibly active, but I believe there are more features being added often.
āā Pixilart
Pixilart is a very popular pixel art community, with an app tied to it. The community tends to lean on the young side, so this is a low-pressure place to post with an relaxed vibe.
āā Pixeljoint
Pixeljoint is one of the big, old-school pixel art websites. You can only upload your art unscaled (1x) because there is a built-in zoom viewer.
It has a bit of a reputation for being elitist (back in the 00s it was), but in my experience it's not like that any more. This is a fine place for a pixel artist to post if they are really interested in learning, and the history.
The Hall of Fame has some of the most famous / impressive pixel art pieces that paved the way for the work we are doing today.
āāā Cafe Dot
Cafe Dot is my art server so I'm a little biased here. šµ
It was created during the recent social media turbulence. We wanted a place to post art with no algorithms, and no NFT or AI chuds. We have a heavy no-self-promotion rule, and are more interested in community than skill or exclusivity.
The other thing is that we have some kind of verification system- you must apply to be a Creator before you can post in the Art feed, or use voice. This helps combat the people who just want to self-promo and dip, or cause trouble, as well as weed out AI/NFT people.
Until then, you are still welcome to post in any of the threads or channels. There is a lot to do in Cafe Dot. I host events weekly, so check the threads!
āā/r/pixelart
The pixel art subreddit is pretty active! I've also heard some of my friends found work through posting here, so it's worth a try if you're looking.
However, it is still Reddit- so if you're sensitive to rude people, or criticism you didn't ask for, you may want to avoid this one. Lol
šø Where To Find Work
You need money? I got you! As someone who mostly gets scouted on social media, I can share a few tips with you:
Put your email / portfolio in your bio
Recruiters don't have all that much time to find artists, make it as easy as possible for someone to find your important information!
Clean up your profile
If your profile feed is all full of memes, most people will just tab out rather than sift through. Doesn't apply as much to Tumblr if you have an art tag people can look at.
Post regularly, and repost
Activity beats everything in the social media game. It's like rolling the dice, and the more you post the more chances you have. You have to have no shame, it's all business baby
Outside of just posting regularly and hoping people reach out to you, it can be hard to know where to look. Here are a few places you can sign up to and post around on.
/r/INAT
INAT (I Need A Team) is a subreddit for finding a team to work with. You can post your portfolio here, or browse for people who need artists.
/r/GameDevClassifieds
Same as above, but specifically for game-related projects.
Remote Game Jobs / Work With Indies
Like Indeed but for game jobs. Browse them often, or get email notifications.
VGen
VGen is a website specifically for commissions. You need a code from another verified artist before you can upgrade your account and sell, so ask around on social media or ask your friends.
Once your account is upgraded, you can make a 'menu' of services people can purchase, and they send you an offer which you are able to accept, decline, or counter.
The evil websites of doom: Fiverr and Upwork
I don't recommend them!! They take a big cut of your profit, and the sites are teeming with NFT and AI people hoping to make a quick buck. The site is also extremely oversaturated and competitive, resulting in a race to the bottom (the cheapest, the fastest, doing the most for the least).
Imagine the kind of clients who go to these websites, looking for the cheapest option. But if you're really desperate...
šø Community
I do really recommend getting involved in a community. Finding like-minded friends can help you stay motivated to keep drawing. One day, those friends you met when you were just starting out may become your peers in the industry. Making friends is a game changer!
Discord servers
Nowadays, the forums of old are mostly abandoned, and people split off into many different servers. Cafe Dot, Pixel Art Discord (PAD), and if you can stomach scrolling past all the AI slop, you can browse Discord servers here.
Twitch Streams
Twitch has kind of a bad reputation for being home to some of the more edgy gamers online, but the pixel art community is extremely welcoming and inclusive. Some of the people I met on Twitch are my friends to this day, and we've even worked together on different projects!
Browse pixel art streams here, or follow some I recommend: NickWoz, JDZombi, CupOhJoe, GrayLure, LumpyTouch, FrankiePixelShow, MortMort, Sodor, NateyCakes, NyuraKim, ShinySeabass, I could go on for ever really... There are a lot of good eggs on Pixel Art Twitch.
šø Other Helpful Websites
Palettes
Lospec has a huge collection of user-made palettes, for any artist who has trouble choosing their colours, or just wants to try something fun.
Rejected Palettes is full of palettes that didn't quite make it onto Lospec, ran by people who believe there are no bad colours.
The Spriters Resource
TSR is an incredible website where users can upload spritesheets and tilesets from games. You can browse for your favourite childhood game, and see how they made it! This website has helped me so much in understanding how game assets come together in a scene.
VGMaps
Similar to the above, except there are entire maps laid out how they would be played. This is incredible if you have to do level design, or for mocking up a scene for fun.
Game UI Database
Not pixel-art specific, but UI is a very challenging part of graphics, so this site can be a game-changer for finding good references!
Retronator
A digital newspaper for pixel-art lovers! New game releases, tutorials, and artworks!
Itch.io
A website where people can upload, games, assets, tools... An amazing hub for game devs and game fans alike.
A few of my favourite tools: Tiled, PICO-8, Pixel Composer, Juice FX, Magic Pencil for Aseprite
šø The End?
This is just part 1 for now, so please drop me a follow to see any more guides I release in the future. I plan on doing some writeups on how I choose colours, how to practise, and more!
I'm not an expert by any means, but everything I did to get to where I am is outlined in this guide. Pixel art is my passion, my job and my hobby! I want pixel art to be recognized everywhere as an art-form, a medium of its own outside of game-art or computer graphics!
This guide took me a long time, and took a lot of research and experience. Consider following me or supporting me if you are feeling generous.
And good luck to all the fledgling pixel artists, I hope you'll continue and have fun. I hope my guide helped you, and don't hesitate to send me an ask if you have any questions! š
a little personal response / tribute to "here's the life i've always longed for" by Anna Haifisch. the original means so much to me, and even though it's hard, I feel like every day i'm making more steps toward finally being on the other side of that fence <:)
hahahaha the girl i like totally doesnt like me and i was in fact just very delusional!!! im not upset at all hahahahahaahhahaha
jokes aside im just a lil disappointed. i mean i still dont know her that well so it wasnt like i was in love with her bc i dont really know her that well but i just asked her on a date and she said no thanks. its chill (maybe idk) tho i was right i lost to fictional men :|
tho i mean im also kinda relieved. i didnt really wanna date a girl skinner than me and i wanted a tall gf so maybe her rejecting me is a good thing .
but also a part of me is relieved bc i thought about actually going out to find some girls to flirt with and talk to. and even tho between me and my crush, i thought that for a second in case she liked me I would feel so bad that i would openly move on. but also liking my crush, was limiting my options and im grown. i want to date someone
and looking back this is such a non issue for me to worry about. why am i considering her feelings towards me meeting other women? i dont owe her any loyalty so why was i so hesitant on trying to meet other women?
well now that THATS out of the way, I think im genuinely excited to meet queer women who will actually be into me and thats gotten me really excited.
im still kinda upset she rejected me, but i also think it set me free bc now i can actually go on and explore without having this crush hold me back. i only asked her on a date bc my friends convinced me and they told me that would i rather get it over with now or wait months down the line and feel even shittier? so i took my chances.
but now, im ready to finally start a chapter of my life. and while i still wish it contains her bc she is a really good friend to me, i think a part of me doesn't mind if she decides to not be part of my world anymore. Id be sad ofc but also ive met so many people and i will meet so many more, i think ive grown enough to sense that i'll be okay when shes not here with me. i have a pretty good amount of people who care for me and i have people who will check on me. I will be okay. I know it.
Im gonna be honest, idk if i felt this security before or maybe i was better used to it when i was younger. but now that im an adult, i think i can really feel it when my friends make an effort despite how busy we all are. and the people I've met have been nothing but great. idk if i'll still be their friends decades from now, but the fact that theyre here beside me is enough for me. and i feel loved.
so here's to a new chapter to me. maybe i'll be the whore ive always wanted to be and have a roster. idk i think im just excited to be grown, its been 19 years in the making
im never trusting rich people if they say they have spare blankets ever again bc why am i here between thin sheets ?? im cold and since I still have childish taste, I can only go to sleep with fuzzy and furry blankets
me and the girl i like are very delusional, like a lot. i know shes bi with a male lean and we're both obsessed with genshin. however she has nsfw chats with diluc and dottore, do yall think i got a chance š„ŗšš (its no. no. i know the answer is no.)
ngl i have this friend that i had a complicated thing with, not directly but through my other friends. long story short, he had a thing with my two friends when we were in high school and in the end, they stopped talking to him and slowly i did too. not that he did anything to me, just that i didn't want my two friends to feel bad and i've learned to NOT do that. he didn't do anything to me, so i'm a little sad about that i pushed him away without saying anything.
we both graduated high school this year, so i had talked to him all throughout that and even learned that he now drives, lives in the area of our uni now, and has a girlfriend now. we exchanged phone numbers and just decided that if we wanted to hang out we could, or at least know someone from our county
but anyways i recconnected with him when he wished me happy birthday and we started talking again. it was actually super cool to talk again. we're both going to the same uni and we were were just talking about it, like schedules and stuff. and it just so nice to have a friend again.
i pushed everyone away because i just didn't feel like talking to any of my friends. even prior to the situation with him and my friends, I just slowly stopped talking to my friends and stopped making new ones at school because i was just tired. I mean the people i was around were people I knew since middle school and I was just tired of seeing them. i didn't want to call my friends nor did i want to text them.
so reconnecting with my friend was really nice. when I went to my orientation, and i met the girl who I now currently have a crush on (see my other posts lol), I told him about her and he even started to cheer me on.
Like imagine me, this is a dude I've been friends with since 7th grade. He's seen all messy sides of me and how I've changed throughout the years, and TRUST ME, how much I say change. From my interests to how I act to my sexuality, he's seen it all. And me to him also. I guess it's just I'm so glad that I have a genuine friend that I can rely on and just talk to. I'm a lesbian and he's a straight taken guy, so it's not like we're interested in each other. Which is kinda new to me bc I've had mostly female friends and most of them I was kinda into or at least willing to date, so it's nice to have a friend that I'm genuinely not into to confide in.
And it was his birthday and since I was still awake at 12 am, I decided to text him happy birthday like he did to me and it was nice. I updated him about me and girl I like (we're getting lunch with our familes together when we move in together !!!) and he updated me on spending time with his gf and buying furniture. Like dude, we're actually becoming adults !!! how crazy is that ????
this was someone I used to just talk about anime and drawing with at 12/13, what the hell do you mean I'm getting to talk to him about moving into college and him buying furniture for a house ????
it's just...I feel really happy now. I have cute girl I like who I also just really enjoy as my friend. She's just as delusional as I am in all the right ways and she's also lgbtq+. And now I also have a dependable friend that I can count on to hang out with. I'm a little scared to leave for college, but I'm also incredibly excited. My life is finally looking up after the pandemic basically decimated my high school experience.
Make sure to text your friends guys. If you're like me, too cynical + too self aware, and think everything you do is cringey, trust me, your real friends won't give a shit. Just talk to them, if nothing else, it's nice to talk with someone else and just catch up. Our lives are always going in different trajectories, but if we have company beside us, it makes life a little less intimidating.
I've definitely been caught up in relationships that make me ignore the importance of friends and I've always been someone to emphasize friendships, but I've never taken my own advice. But now, I feel it more than ever. Relationships are great, but don't just throw away important friendships, especially when you're two friends trying to figure out adult life with.
guys the cute girl i met at my orientation is so cute !!!
she's also just as delusional as me, which is A LOT. like we're both into genshin, chronically online, up to date with any internet news, love art, anime, etc.
we text every day, send each other instagram reels, like each other's stories, and omg ??? i haven't talked to someone everyday for SO long it's been since like my freshman year in high school like 5 years ago
and i don't know if we're just friends or flirting ???? like i hope we're flirting but i'm also super chill if we're just friends (it's not like i planned my future around her hahahahahahahahahahah)
and now when we move in, we're also getting lunch together with both of our families hahahhah i'm totally not planning to marry her and have our families introduced early hahahahahahahhahahhahahahhahahahhahhahahahhahahha (i'm so, so, SO delusional i've only known her 20 days what is wrong with me)
also we planned to change roommates so that we could room together and i totally didn't call the housing department and called actual building to see if i could switch hahahahahahaha
and the thing is, I'm in the stage of liking her where like I'm pretty interested by her and I want to get to know her better and that I don't actually want to date her yet. But i'm also pretty sure I'm into her, or at least in the beginning stage
which is cool ig for being self aware, but also I think this is the only time i've actually liked a girl and was fully aware I liked a girl that I wasn't dating
which is kinda shitty that i only liked my ex gfs because I learned to love them only after we started dating, but again i was like 14 and trying to experiment how it would be to date girls and i liked it a lot. and i did end up loving the girls i dated for months, but having a crush and pining is kinda new to me
and i'm not into dudes anymore but i did use to pine for dudes but that was like EONS ago
and i guess it's just been so long that I've had a little crush that it just reminds me that I miss feeling this giddy. it's just something cute, nothing serious yet, just fun. i know i'm being hopeful, but I do hope she stays in my life, she's really cute.
this is not a drill i think i have a crush on my new friend that i made during my orientation for college kjsbdskjabaks
we bonded over playing genshin, it was mostly too hot and humid for me to do anything so we were quiet for most of our time together but we would always stick by each other for both days so that must mean something
i just......i havenāt had a real crush on a girl in some time so itās like do i like her or is this just how it feels to make new friends
bc honestly i havent made new friends in so long it feels so foriegn to me now. like genuinely i knew almost everyone in my high school and by the end of my freshman year i knew everyone and my sophmore year i made new friends with the freshmen but thatās honestly the last time i had got to make new friends before the pandemic so i am RUSTY as hell when it comes to making friends again
kjanjacskjcns itās just that sheās so chill, cool, and makes amazing art i feel like combusting
she also asked me today i wanted to room with her and i obviously said yes. iām losing my mind
and like i vowed to myself that i wouldnāt fall any girl unless i knew for sure she was at least somewhat into girls, but idk if sheās gay TT but i made sure to get her to know i was gay at least
but i also feel kinda bad if she is straight or if sheās not into me because iām not trying to be her friend just because i want to hook up with her bc i donāt. i just think sheās really cool and we have lots of interests in common, but i really donāt want her to think iām doing this just to get laid bc i would hate if someone did that to me. guys what do i do TTTTTTTT
i am not winning the idgaf war, in fact iām losing and making the siren blare all around me notifying everyone in a 3 mile perimeterĀ
stormborns
yousharknotpass
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
areudirty
origamiaround
