It's August AdiPOSE, coined by @kivanbay where we put an emphasis on fat bodies and fat representation. To celebrate, you're going to see a whole lotta fat refs this month. Here's some resources I already have for your drawings!
Lauren Ashley Sitting Pack - 64 pose reference photos of a fat, white, female model sitting on the floor and a bench in various positions, some with different props including: tea cup, “cigar” (it’s a Sharpie), book, and staff (it’s a broomstick).
Lauren Ashley Weapons Pack - This pack includes 49 full body pose references of a fat, white, female model holding various weapons including: sword, ax, wand, knives, machete, and guns.
Lauren Ashley Highlights Pack - This pack features 88 full body pose references of a fat, white, female model in an assortment of poses including: casual, staff, cup, dramatic, lying, kneeling, and umbrella.
Rowena 2 Pack - An assortment of 75 Princess Rowena full body pose references with themes that include: cute, sitting, mermaid, book, wand, magic, dance, staff, guns, laying, sword, hat and cane, and shoulder bag
Rowena 3 Pack - 60 full body pose references featuring my fat model Rowena with themes of: books, basket, reaching, expressions, and magic wand.
Maya Kern skirt collab pack 1 - The long awaited @mayakern collab pack – PART ONE is here. 🎉 This pack features 24 images of Maya and Sarah in skirts looking cute together and 89 images of Maya and her wife Devin being incredible excessive and dramatic with a sword and each other.
August Adipose pack - 30 pose references of fat models in various poses including casual, swimming, weapons, skirts, and groups. Includes a few featured images from Maya Kern.
some people have asked about making zines, and i've seen a lot of people in the tags talk about wanting to make some but don't know how... so here is a zine (technically two) about making zines! wowza! pardon the handwriting lol
there are other methods of making zines that require a stapler or sewing, but this one-page zine is the simplest form of it.
i hope this makes sense, feel free to ask if anything is unclear :]
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
I saw and reblogged this one a while back, but it’s always worth repeating, and this time I’m adding a bit of background info comparing common fantasy sword features to the Real Thing (with pictures, of course.)
Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.
Here are Celtic bronze swords…
…Ancient Greek Xiphoi…
… and a Roman “Mainz-pattern” gladius…
Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.
Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. They’re weapons if necessary…
…but since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.
This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside it…
…but may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.
A couple of internet captions say it’s for “cutting ropes” which makes sense - heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Hero’s rapier (!!) wouldn’t be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didn’t work as well as intended for any purpose.
I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).
A lot of “flamberge” (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape - the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.
The giveaway is the centreline: if it’s straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.
Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.
Again, the clue is the centre-line.
Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks - a secondary crossguard) are among the only real-life examples of another common fantasy feature - hooks and spikes sticking out from the blade.
Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.
There’s no doubt about this one either.
The reason - though that was a part of it - wasn’t just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.
However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual - which suggests the advantage wasn’t that much of an advantage after all.
Here’s a Circassian kindjal, forged wiggly…
…and an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wiggly…
There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.
These more practical historical versions are usually called “sword-breakers” but I prefer “sword-catcher”, since a steel blade isn’t that easy to break. Taking the opponent’s blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.
NB - the curvature on the top one in this next image is AFAIK because of the book-page it was copied from, not the blade itself.
The missing tooth on that second dagger, and the crack halfway down this next one’s blade, shows what happens when design features cause weak spots.
So there you go: a quick overview of fantasy sword features in real life.
Here’s a real-life weapon that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story or film - and this doesn’t even have an odd-shaped blade…
Just a very flexible one…
If you want more odd blades, Moghul India is a good place to start…
I made a Really Basic CSP animation set-up guide for a friend, or at least how I personally set-up my animation workspace! I wanted to share this here because some of this might be insightful to someone else out there too :-)
It mostly covers really basic functions and dabbles a little bit into how to add keyframes and camera movements, but nothing too groundbreaking. BUT I figure it could be helpful for the unfamiliar!
When I was in my teens, I used to make an entire magic system with 360+ unique spells, ordered in magic schools and categories, and it boggles my mind that I basically reinvented DnD mechanics, even down to metamagic.
I wanted to make a wiki about it but I don't have time for it.
The point was to try to encompass every "superpower" I could think of into a magic system.
I even got lore related to it all, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna simply reuse it all for OC worldbuilding. Ngl the fun part was naming all the spells, symbols and coming up with the logic of it all.
and before you ask, you see all those individual cells in that spreadsheet ?
They're all either a spell or a category.
And they ALL have a paragraph attached to them describing what it does.
Not many people realized this but if you flip the Alchemy symbol upside down, you get a potion flask.
Also I think the old term of Alchemy is a bit too imprecise, in the new updated version it's called Substance (you can already see it already in the pixelated spreadsheet if you zoom in lmao)
I made these as a way to compile all the geographical vocabulary that I thought was useful and interesting for writers. Some descriptors share categories, and some are simplified, but for the most part everything is in its proper place. Not all the words are as useable as others, and some might take tricky wording to pull off, but I hope these prove useful to all you writers out there!
The Anatomy of Passing Out: When, Why, and How to Write It
Passing out, or syncope, is a loss of consciousness that can play a pivotal role in storytelling, adding drama, suspense, or emotional weight to a scene. Whether it’s due to injury, fear, or exhaustion, the act of fainting can instantly shift the stakes in your story.
But how do you write it convincingly? How do you ensure it’s not overly dramatic or medically inaccurate? In this guide, I’ll walk you through the causes, stages, and aftermath of passing out. By the end, you’ll be able to craft a vivid, realistic fainting scene that enhances your narrative without feeling clichéd or contrived.
2. Common Causes of Passing Out
Characters faint for a variety of reasons, and understanding the common causes can help you decide when and why your character might lose consciousness. Below are the major categories that can lead to fainting, each with their own narrative implications.
Physical Causes
Blood Loss: A sudden drop in blood volume from a wound can cause fainting as the body struggles to maintain circulation and oxygen delivery to the brain.
Dehydration: When the body doesn’t have enough fluids, blood pressure can plummet, leading to dizziness and fainting.
Low Blood Pressure (Hypotension): Characters with chronic low blood pressure may faint after standing up too quickly, due to insufficient blood reaching the brain.
Intense Pain: The body can shut down in response to severe pain, leading to fainting as a protective mechanism.
Heatstroke: Extreme heat can cause the body to overheat, resulting in dehydration and loss of consciousness.
Psychological Causes
Emotional Trauma or Shock: Intense fear, grief, or surprise can trigger a fainting episode, as the brain becomes overwhelmed.
Panic Attacks: The hyperventilation and increased heart rate associated with anxiety attacks can deprive the brain of oxygen, causing a character to faint.
Fear-Induced Fainting (Vasovagal Syncope): This occurs when a character is so afraid that their body’s fight-or-flight response leads to fainting.
Environmental Causes
Lack of Oxygen: Situations like suffocation, high altitudes, or enclosed spaces with poor ventilation can deprive the brain of oxygen and cause fainting.
Poisoning or Toxins: Certain chemicals or gasses (e.g., carbon monoxide) can interfere with the body’s ability to transport oxygen, leading to unconsciousness.
3. The Stages of Passing Out
To write a realistic fainting scene, it’s important to understand the stages of syncope. Fainting is usually a process, and characters will likely experience several key warning signs before they fully lose consciousness.
Pre-Syncope (The Warning Signs)
Before losing consciousness, a character will typically go through a pre-syncope phase. This period can last anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes, and it’s full of physical indicators that something is wrong.
Light-Headedness and Dizziness: A feeling that the world is spinning, which can be exacerbated by movement.
Blurred or Tunnel Vision: The character may notice their vision narrowing or going dark at the edges.
Ringing in the Ears: Often accompanied by a feeling of pressure or muffled hearing.
Weakness in Limbs: The character may feel unsteady, like their legs can’t support them.
Sweating and Nausea: A sudden onset of cold sweats, clamminess, and nausea is common.
Rapid Heartbeat (Tachycardia): The heart races as it tries to maintain blood flow to the brain.
Syncope (The Loss of Consciousness)
When the character faints, the actual loss of consciousness happens quickly, often within seconds of the pre-syncope signs.
The Body Going Limp: The character will crumple to the ground, usually without the ability to break their fall.
Breathing: Breathing continues, but it may be shallow and rapid.
Pulse: While fainting, the heart rate can either slow down dramatically or remain rapid, depending on the cause.
Duration: Most fainting episodes last from a few seconds to a minute or two. Prolonged unconsciousness may indicate a more serious issue.
Post-Syncope (The Recovery)
After a character regains consciousness, they’ll typically feel groggy and disoriented. This phase can last several minutes.
Disorientation: The character may not immediately remember where they are or what happened.
Lingering Dizziness: Standing up too quickly after fainting can trigger another fainting spell.
Nausea and Headache: After waking up, the character might feel sick or develop a headache.
Weakness: Even after regaining consciousness, the body might feel weak or shaky for several hours.
4. The Physical Effects of Fainting
Fainting isn’t just about losing consciousness—there are physical consequences too. Depending on the circumstances, your character may suffer additional injuries from falling, especially if they hit something on the way down.
Impact on the Body
Falling Injuries: When someone faints, they usually drop straight to the ground, often hitting their head or body in the process. Characters may suffer cuts, bruises, or even broken bones.
Head Injuries: Falling and hitting their head on the floor or a nearby object can lead to concussions or more severe trauma.
Scrapes and Bruises: If your character faints on a rough surface or near furniture, they may sustain scrapes, bruises, or other minor injuries.
Physical Vulnerability
Uncontrolled Fall: The character’s body crumples or falls in a heap. Without the ability to brace themselves, they are at risk for further injuries.
Exposed While Unconscious: While fainted, the character is vulnerable to their surroundings. This could lead to danger in the form of attackers, environmental hazards, or secondary injuries from their immediate environment.
Signs to Look For While Unconscious
Shallow Breathing: The character's breathing will typically become shallow or irregular while they’re unconscious.
Pale or Flushed Skin: Depending on the cause of fainting, a character’s skin may become very pale or flushed.
Twitching or Muscle Spasms: In some cases, fainting can be accompanied by brief muscle spasms or jerking movements.
5. Writing Different Types of Fainting
There are different types of fainting, and each can serve a distinct narrative purpose. The way a character faints can help enhance the scene's tension or emotion.
Sudden Collapse
In this case, the character blacks out without any warning. This type of fainting is often caused by sudden physical trauma or exhaustion.
No Warning: The character simply drops, startling both themselves and those around them.
Used in High-Tension Scenes: For example, a character fighting in a battle may suddenly collapse from blood loss, raising the stakes instantly.
Slow and Gradual Fainting
This happens when a character feels themselves fading, usually due to emotional stress or exhaustion.
Internal Monologue: The character might have time to realize something is wrong and reflect on what’s happening before they lose consciousness.
Adds Suspense: The reader is aware that the character is fading but may not know when they’ll drop.
Dramatic Fainting
Some stories call for a more theatrical faint, especially in genres like historical fiction or period dramas.
Exaggerated Swooning: A character might faint from shock or fear, clutching their chest or forehead before collapsing.
Evokes a Specific Tone: This type of fainting works well for dramatic, soap-opera-like scenes where the fainting is part of the tension.
6. Aftermath: How Characters Feel After Waking Up
When your character wakes up from fainting, they’re not going to bounce back immediately. There are often lingering effects that last for minutes—or even hours.
Physical Recovery
Dizziness and Nausea: Characters might feel off-balance or sick to their stomach when they first come around.
Headaches: A headache is a common symptom post-fainting, especially if the character hits their head.
Body Aches: Muscle weakness or stiffness may persist, especially if the character fainted for a long period or in an awkward position.
Emotional and Mental Impact
Confusion: The character may not remember why they fainted or what happened leading up to the event.
Embarrassment: Depending on the situation, fainting can be humiliating, especially if it happened in front of others.
Fear: Characters who faint from emotional shock might be afraid of fainting again or of the situation that caused it.
7. Writing Tips: Making It Believable
Writing a fainting scene can be tricky. If not handled properly, it can come across as melodramatic or unrealistic. Here are some key tips to ensure your fainting scenes are both believable and impactful.
Understand the Cause
First and foremost, ensure that the cause of fainting makes sense in the context of your story. Characters shouldn’t pass out randomly—there should always be a logical reason for it.
Foreshadow the Fainting: If your character is losing blood, suffering from dehydration, or undergoing extreme emotional stress, give subtle clues that they might pass out. Show their discomfort building before they collapse.
Avoid Overuse: Fainting should be reserved for moments of high stakes or significant plot shifts. Using it too often diminishes its impact.
Balance Realism with Drama
While you want your fainting scene to be dramatic, don’t overdo it. Excessively long or theatrical collapses can feel unrealistic.
Keep It Short: Fainting typically happens fast. Avoid dragging the loss of consciousness out for too long, as it can slow down the pacing of your story.
Don’t Always Save the Character in Time: In some cases, let the character hit the ground. This adds realism, especially if they’re fainting due to an injury or traumatic event.
Consider the Aftermath
Make sure to give attention to what happens after the character faints. This part is often overlooked, but it’s important for maintaining realism and continuity.
Lingering Effects: Mention the character’s disorientation, dizziness, or confusion upon waking up. It’s rare for someone to bounce back immediately after fainting.
Reactions of Others: If other characters are present, how do they react? Are they alarmed? Do they rush to help, or are they unsure how to respond?
Avoid Overly Romanticized Fainting
In some genres, fainting is used as a dramatic or romantic plot device, but this can feel outdated and unrealistic. Try to focus on the genuine physical or emotional toll fainting takes on a character.
Stay Away from Clichés: Avoid having your character faint simply to be saved by a love interest. If there’s a romantic element, make sure it’s woven naturally into the plot rather than feeling forced.
8. Common Misconceptions About Fainting
Fainting is often misrepresented in fiction, with exaggerated symptoms or unrealistic recoveries. Here are some common myths about fainting, and the truth behind them.
Myth 1: Fainting Always Comes Without Warning
While some fainting episodes are sudden, most people experience warning signs (lightheadedness, blurred vision) before passing out. This gives the character a chance to notice something is wrong before losing consciousness.
Myth 2: Fainting Is Dramatic and Slow
In reality, fainting happens quickly—usually within a few seconds of the first warning signs. Characters won’t have time for long speeches or dramatic gestures before collapsing.
Myth 3: Characters Instantly Bounce Back
Many stories show characters waking up and being perfectly fine after fainting, but this is rarely the case. Fainting usually leaves people disoriented, weak, or even nauseous for several minutes afterward.
Myth 4: Fainting Is Harmless
In some cases, fainting can indicate a serious medical issue, like heart problems or severe dehydration. If your character is fainting frequently, it should be addressed in the story as a sign of something more severe.
Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks?
Are you an author looking for writing tips and tricks to better your manuscript? Or do you want to learn about how to get a literary agent, get published and properly market your book? Consider checking out the rest of Quillology with Haya Sameer; a blog dedicated to writing and publishing tips for authors! While you’re at it, don’t forget to head over to my TikTok and Instagram profiles @hayatheauthor to learn more about my WIP and writing journey!
Something I try to keep in mind when making art that looks vintage is keeping a limited color pallette. Digital art gives you a very wide, Crisp scope of colors, whereas traditional art-- especially older traditional art-- had a very limited and sometimes dulled use of color.
This is a modern riso ink swatch, but still you find a similar and limited selection of colors to mix with. (Mixing digitally as to emulate the layering of ink riso would be coloring on Multiply, and layering on top of eachother 👉)
If you find some old prints, take a closer look and see if you can tell what colors they used and which ones they layered... a lot of the time you'll find yellow as a base!
Misprints can really reveal what colors were used and where, I love misprints...
Something else I keep in the back of my mind is: how the human eye perceives color on paper vs. a screen. Ink and paint soaks into paper, it bleeds, stains, fades over time, smears, ect... the history of a piece can show in physical wear. What kind of history do you want to emulate? Misprinted? Stained? Kept as clean as possible, but unable to escape the bluing damages of the sun? It's one of my favorite things about making vintage art. Making it imperfect!
You can see the bleed, the wobble of the lines on the rug, the fading, the dirt... beautiful!!
Thinking in terms of traditional-method art while drawing digital can help open avenues to achieving that genuine, vintage look!
YELLOWING!! Digital art is very blue-light based. Cold, clean, flat. But traditional art has warmth to it. Why?
Over time, paper gets yellowed with dust, oil, dirt, and nicotine from cigarettes! So colors got warmer. This makes art look pretty aged, on top of the slight toned papers and hand made/factory made inks they printed with.
True Grit Texture Supply sells whole bundles of tools with ready to use halftoned color brushes, paper textures, ink burshes and useful charts to make drawing in vintage style really damn fun!! Go check out those two sets:
Recreate authentic pre-digital color formulas used during the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Dark Ages of comics in Photoshop & Procraete.
Faithfully reproduce the warm, nostalgic aesthetic of vintage comic book printing in Photoshop, Procreate, Affinity Photo and Clip Studio Pa
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!
🔹 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.
✨Did you know? One of the most skilled and beloved pixel artists uses MS PAINT! Wow!!
🔹 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! ⭐
💰 Paid options:
⭐⭐⭐ 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!
⭐ 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!
⭐⭐ ProMotion NG (for PC) - $19.00
An advanced and powerful software which has many features Aseprite does not, including Colour Cycling and animated tiles.
⭐⭐⭐ Pixquare (for iOS) - $7.99 - $19.99 (30% off with code 'tofu'!!)
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.
⭐ 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.
🆓 Free options:
⭐⭐⭐ 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.
⭐⭐ 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.
⭐⭐ 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.
🔹 So I got my software, now what?
◽Nice! Now it's time for the basics of pixel art.
❗ WAIT ❗ 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. 💕👍
◽Phew! With that out of the way...
🔸"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.
🔹Scaling 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.
(Most pixel-art programs have nearest-neighbor enabled by default! So this may not apply to you, but it's important to know.)
🔹Mixels
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.
🔹Saving Your Files
We usually save our still images as .PNGs as they don’t 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 aren’t careful, your animation could flash afterwards, as the .GIF tries to reduce colours wherever it can. It doesn’t 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.
🔹Pixel Art Fundamentals - Techniques and Jargon
❗❗Confused about Jaggies? Anti-Aliasing? Banding? Dithering? THIS THREAD is for you❗❗
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!!
🔸How 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.
⭐⭐ 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.
⭐⭐⭐ 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.
⭐ 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.
⭐⭐⭐ 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'.
⭐⭐⭐ 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!
🔸 How to choose a canvas size
When looking at pixel art turorials, we may see people suggest things like 16x16, 32x32 and 64x64. These are standard sizes for pixel art games with tiles. However, if you're just making a drawing, you don't necessarily need to use a standard canvas size like that.
What I like to think about when choosing a canvas size for my illustrations is 'what features do I think it is important to represent?' And make my canvas as small as possible, while still leaving room for my most important elements.
Imagine I have characters in a scene like this:
I made my canvas as small as possible (232 x 314), but just big enough to represent the features and have them be recognizable (it's Good Omens fanart 😤)!! If I had made it any bigger, I would be working on it for ever, due to how much more foliage I would have to render.
If you want to do an illustration and you're not sure, just start at somewhere around 100x100 - 200x200 and go from there.
It's perfectly okay to crop your canvas, or scale it up, or crunch your art down at any point if you think you need a different size. I do it all the time! It only takes a bit of cleanup to get you back to where you were.
🔸Where 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.
⭐ 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.
⭐⭐ 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.
⭐⭐ 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.
⭐⭐⭐ Cafe Dot
Cafe Dot is my art server so I'm a little biased here. 🍵
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!
⭐⭐/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
🔸 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...
🔸 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.
🔸 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
🔸 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! 💕
As a Dungeon Master I nearly scrolled past this before my brain kicked my own ass and reminded me that I have tried looking up 'Blue Gemstones' at LEAST a dozen times in the last six months and never found anything this helpful.
Do you happen to have any tips on drawing water/waves? You do such a lovely job with it!!! You really manage to capture the beauty of light sparkling on the water's surface/passing through the water and it's gorgeous.
The most important thing about being able to draw something is understanding what you're drawing and why it looks like that. How does it function? Draw with intention.
Water doesn't have a fixed shape, but it has weight and moves accordingly. Water moves in a jerky motion and splashes in a violent manner. Water is fluid, but when it hits anything, it literally creates waves, it has a lot of momentum.
The look of water varies on how much you can see through it, how clear it is, where it is as in what is it reflecting (ocean floor, the sky, swimming pool tiles etc.), how deep is it and so on.
Swimming pools are very clear, you can see far into the water and it's almost like looking at glass
In the sea / lakes deeper water is darker and harder to see into -> the shore is shallow and you can see more into the water
Lighting and the sky affect the look of water a lot, the water is always reflecting the sky in some way.
Time of day and weather -> how dark the water is in relation to the sky
Low sun -> creates highlights on the water (early morning, sunset, sunrise..)
Underwater lighting is always darker and in shadow. Even on a bright day there are heavy shadows. The light is mostly at the top, close to the surface and the rest of the light scatters towards the bottom as pillars of light.
Variety in color is important to bring the water to life!!! A wave or water is never just blue, it's a collection of hues..!
Phew, so there's some thoughts, we'll be here all week if I keep going, there's such an infinite amount of things to point out, but I hope this helps a bit!
And remember references!! Stay curious and really look at a lot of pictures, videos, there's always something new to learn and discover!
