ok I seriously need to know how you do pixel art- like iv been wanting to try it for a while but whenever I attempt to I just blatantly fail and it ends up really blocky (in the bad way) and not detailed and it’s just too- almost perfect? Like I hyper-fixate on making sure each individual pixel is perfectly placed so it doesn’t look like a random spew of colored boxes but in the end it just looks too.. forced ig
But whenever I see your wonderful freaking masterpieces their always so flowey and like- just well put together in general, it’s not too blocky, it’s smooth enough to where I see the imagine clearly and can tell what’s what really clearly but it’s not overly ‘perfected’ or whatever- like it’s quite litteraly the golden inbetween that I can never understand-
so my general question ig is like
HOW DO U EVEN DO IT?? What apps do you use for it, do you make a mockup sketch of what you want before hand- do you do it with pixels or without- do you draw it without the pixely brush thing (idk what it’s called lmao) and then retexture it into pixels after?? Like im so confused 😭 maybe this is a dumb question but- I dunno I rlly look up to how you draw and stuff so I’m genuinely really curious lol
OOOOOOHOOOOH hihihihi!!! Thanks! It makes me happy that you like my art ;; sorry if it took me 2 days to reply, I have about 10 drafts of this same post and I needed to put my ideas in order. Ok so, with the true deal. I'm super bad at explaining AND my process can be super messy sometimes BUT I'll try to explain it ok!! I don't know what specific thing you need so I'm going to narrate the whoooole process. Prepare yourself since this is gonna be super LONG.
First of all, I feel like I need to point out that English is not my first language so I want to apologize in advance for any mistake. Second of all, I'm gonna yap and yap and yap A LOT sndbdhsk, I will try to give as many details as possible. 🙂↕️
I do almost everything on IbisPaint now, sometimes I would use Aseprite on my laptop but my monitor doesn't show colors correctly AND being there for too much time makes my back hurt a lot... Shrimp posture...
Let the tutorial begin:
Right now I can summarize everything like this:
1) I do a messy sketch, then I trace over it to clean it a little and add more details, still messy.
2) I start working on the lineart (sometimes I would switch to Aseprite for this one, I'll explain the reason why)
3) Add base colors and some simple shadows.
4) I polish. (It's not very explanatory on its own, I know, so I'll try to delve deeper into it further in the post)
Let me explain:
1) The sketch:
Yeah everything starts with a simple messy doodle, I usually start doodling and messing around until I do something that I like enough to finish lol.
The brush doesn't matter.
Sometimes I would start drawing with a pixelated brush, sometimes I feel like drawing with a completely different brush, I used to draft my ideas on paper first, then I would take pictures of them and compress their size until it looked right to me. I stopped doing it because... I honestly don't know why I stopped doing it lol. The point here is that it doesn't matter what you start with.
Usually my sketches are relatively small, it's easier to me to draw on small spaces hehe.
For this explanation to be a little more understandable, I will be drawing a little Frisk (with Flowey)
I did a very rough doodle of what I had in mind:
This is only to get the main idea, then I would lower the opacity, create a new layer and trace over the first draft:
This is where I start adding small details and stuff aside the pose of the character. I gave them a Nice cream :]
I also get rid of confusing overlapping lines (like Flowey overlapping with Frisk's hair in this example).
Now that I know what I want and have the sketch, I start doing the lineart.
2) The lineart:
Ok so, first I'll just select the transform tool and manually adjust the size of the image until I think it's good. I don't have a specific size for my drawings BUT somehow I always end up making them in a range of 180px to 300px (as I said, it doesn't have to be an specific size, you can just mess around)
This is the part were I USUALLY switch to aseprite.
Why?
Because of the "pixel perfect" feature and the line tool.
The thing with aseprite is that ir can save a looot of time if you want clean and straight lines... I use a lot of straight lines so Aseprite's line tool is a blessing, To have "perfect" lines you just have to press shift while using the tool. I recorded a whole video of me doing the lineart just because, lol. Line tool fancam... Good luck on not getting bored while watching this.
On Ibispaint... You will get SUPER weird and "dirty" lines and you will have to clean it all MANUALLY and it sucks if you don't have enough patience...
Anyways, if you have no choice but to use Ibispaint, the brush is called "Digital Pen", set it to the minimum size, and if you want to use IbisPaint you'll need to go to settings and DISABLE "Interpolation when zoom in" or everything will look blurry
Ah by the way, I tend to use a very very dark blue/purple instead of pure black for the lineart.
3) Colors and Shadows:
When it comes to base colors I just use the bucket tool lol, however if you're on IbisPaint you'll need to go to the bucket tool settings and make sure that "Strength" and "Expansion" are both on 0 or it will look terrible, trust me.
When selecting the color of the light and shadows I follow this rule (image not mine but I think it summarizes it very well):
Let's apply it on Frisk:
The first example uses only a darker tone of the base color for the shadows, while the other was done with hue shifting in mind. I'm not saying that the first one is bad, I think it depends on your preferences and the style you're aiming for, I'm just taking about the way I do it.
Some people use a checker pattern (technique which is known as "dithering") for the transition between tones but I only use it on very specific cases, mostly to add texture.
Try to make sure the line dividing your base from your shadow is as clean just as you did the lineart... Uh does that makes sense... It does, right... Ok...
4) The polishing:
We're almost done...!!!
The first thing when I do when I polish is painting the dark lines from inside the drawing, leaving only the ones on the outside.
Look at this example (with dark lines vs without them):
I feel it looks cleaner now :]
You can see there's no more dark lines inside the drawing, only on the outside of everything, also, I don't add colored outlines either, instead I let the colors separate all the pieces from each other, the only case in which I would use colored outlines instead of going "lineless" is in places where two objects of the same color/very similar color are next to each other (for example, Flowey's petals or Frisk's shorts and shoes) ooor when I need to separate something better. Basically I add them when I need more readability.
Next is antialiasing THIS ONE IS SO HARD TO EXPLAIN TO MEEEEE at the beginning I didn't do it because I couldn't understand it aaaagh, but basically, it's a technique that allows you to soften the transition between two colors and give your art a smoother look in general, it consists of adding little pixels of an intermediate color in specific places... I suck at explaining it so BETTER LOOK AT THIS!!! It's better than anything I could say about the subject:
Here's the comparison between the one without antialiasing vs the one with antialiasing:
Antialiasing can be a little confusing and tedious sometimes (it was for me) so you don't have to do it if you don't want to. It's just a little "extra" for me.
Although, at this point I feel like I'm gonna go insane if I don't do it.
Now it's finished! Hooray! In my case, I like to manually draw a thick outline, doesn't have to be perfect. I like to exagerate a little the shapes in it.
I'd add a brigther color on a small section of the thick outline in the same direction as the light and then I'd add a white outline.
Additionally and (completely optional) I like to put some dark patches in the direction of the shadows, this is just a stylistic decision. :]
Here's the finished drawing! (With and without patches)
That's uh, that's it!
Kande style tutorial on Tumblr 100% real no fake.
Don't forget to like, subscribe and hit the notification bell for more content like this /j
Jokes aside, I really hope this helps you!!!! I would've put more images but Tumblr limits me to only 10, which sucks because I'm too visual and the easiest way I can explain and understand stuff is with images! °▽°U
If there's something else you want to ask or if this tutorial was completely useless 0/10 wouldn't recommend you're welcome to tell me aaaAAAAAH.
