#pixel art tips

[8pxl]

i used to create my art 100% in black and white to understand values, and i think that greatly benefited my art. I create each layer in different values, starting with the foreground being black then background fading to white. understanding the values made addind monochrome color a lot easier, then once i mastered doing monochrome i started using blended color palettes. a big thing i like to do when creating palettes is using actual photographs then heavily editing the colors to be more magical/saturated etc. that alone will train your eye and color selection skills :)

[dotsdallydilly]

[jinxcode]

hi!! i’ve recently started a portfolio project with some friends to create a retro styled game. while i like to think i’m decent at digital art i still struggle with pixel art and i absolutely adore your style and pixel pieces. if it’s alright can i ask if you have any tips for working with pixel art?

aww, thank you so much!! <3 i'm not an expert by any means, but i would be happy to share a few tips that may help you out!

first things first, i use aseprite as my program while working with pixels! however, you can make do with any art program that has a binary tool :]

1 - Coloring the lines!

something that i think can add a lot to pixel art is coloring in the lines in specific places to suggest a softer edge, or difference in lighting (and accuracy aside, it looks more interesting!)

2 - Shading!

when it comes to shading, there are a lot of different ways you can do things based on your own style!

personally, i tend to avoid what's called pillow shading, which is basically just shading around every outline of the art with no difference in weight. i also prefer not to make the shading overly detailed with too many different colors, as it can muddy up the palette and readability (especially with smaller sprites!)

out of the three examples on the top, the first one is what i would personally use! sometimes just having simple shading is best, but it really depends on the size...

3 - Sizing your canvas!

one of the most important parts of pixel art is a choice you have to make before you even begin the artwork, which is how to size the canvas.

if it's too small, you may not have enough room to fit all the details

if it's too big, there may be parts of the sprite that seem barren and kinda wonky

... so use your space wisely! depending on the thing you're trying to draw, a larger or smaller canvas may be more suitable.

4 - Color Palette!

another small tip is to try and re-use as many colors as you can from your existing palette! it's fine to add a color here and there as needed, but using as few colors as possible can make your artwork feel a lot more coherent

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i hope this helped a bit! if there's anything specific that you would like some tips on (making character sprites, tilesets, etc), just let me know ^__^

[noonbeam17]

alr so im trying to make mockup sprites for my funny little guys. the first one was the one i made. and then a while later i was like "oh this is kind of hard to read actually" so i edited it to make the second pic. and then i was like actually it might be because the hair is covering the eyes just the slightest bit and also i should bring the nose back and also edit the shading just the slightest bit. ANYWAY i still wanna make sure this looks alright so can someone just like give me tips on how to improve this :3

also: brown thing on chin in first pic is supposed to be just a bit of facial hair but i couldnt figure out how to make it look good so i got rid of it. if anyone knows how to make it look good lmk

[totallynotthecrystalskull]

Do you have any tips for recreating the Deltarune sprite style?

Hmm... I'm not entirely sure if I've got any 100% full proof tips for the style (nor will I pretend I'm an expert on the style), but I'll give what I can for ya! So, first up, for any given color on a sprite, I'd suggest only using two colors. One brighter highlight, and one darker base/tone. the shading in DR doesn't tend to get super complex, so most of the time having only two tones for a part should work super well. Bonus points if one or both of the colors are then reincorporated into other parts too, like using one section's highlight as a shade for another, or using the same shade for multiple colors.

Second, a few in-between pixels can help give depth to sprites. You ever see those one or two pixels in-between an outline and the base color, and it uses the same color as the shade? Well, those are in-betweens, and while UT and Lightworld style sprites don't tend to use them, the Darkworld sprite tends to have way more of them, and they help distinguish Darkworld sprites. Third, don't be afraid to use a different color than outright black for your character outlines. There are a lot of sprites that use pure black like Lightworld sprites or sprites for Darkners, but if you're making a darkworld sprite for a Lightner, than get a little creative. Use a very dark tint of whatever their main color is, and that'll help them feel like more of a lightner. It's not a hard-n-fast rule (Berdly uses a black outline despite being a lightner), but it's a tool that can be used.

Fourth, use plenty of ref material. Take other DR sprites, compare them to your work, see what might be different, how you could fix it, and just try your best. And finally, remember that DR's stlye isn't perfect, has plenty of imperfections, and that it's ok to go for designs that aren't super consistent. It's part of the charm in my opinion, because even if it's definitely improved since UT, the spritework is still obviously no Metal Slug or anything, and I kinda love it for it. If you've got differences or flaws between your sprite and the official style, just remember that the official DR sprites are also pretty inconsistent, so your problems might not even register as looking wrong. Sometimes it's even fun to embrace a sprite's initial mistake and then turn it into something amazing/fun. And so uh... yeah, there's my tips. Not really sure if it helped all that much, but I hope they do! If I'm being totally honest here, my style's actually more closely based upon the style of the Undertale mod Bits and Pieces, as it's what I originally was mimicking, and it just so happened to be conveniently similar to DR's style. These are a few character sprites that I made in the style of the mod, with these all being the winners of a contest the community had to get NPCs into the mod (and the final two are mine).

I'd also made some sprites in past that were for a game project I was helping out with. It never saw fruition, though the styled was obviously influenced by the Undertale style, but they were different and they were also... well, a little rougher considering I made them when I was just getting into pixel art. I still like them and I don't think I did too bad for at the time, but it definitely doesn't match my current style (plus, the project's kinda dead in the water anyways)

[quaintpanic]

Pixel art tutorial - Line

If you’re doing lined pixel art, having your lines be clean is pretty important. Humans tend to like clean, consistent things, and having messy lines can make your pixel art look sloppy, regardless of everything else.

Here’s a Kirby I drew. He looks good, but the linework can be improved a bunch. I’ll show you how! 

See those clumps of pixels in the lines, where you’ve got a bunch touching each other? We want to get rid of that. 

Also, the outline looks really dark compared to the rest of the colors. This isnt necessarily a bad thing, but I like to lighten it up a little.

Here, I’ve cleaned up the clumps on the linework, it looks thinner now. I’ve also made it lighter near the top, where the light would be hitting him. This is better, but there’s one more step I like to take with lineart.

Here he is again! Notice those lighter pixels hugging the lines? That’s called anti-aliasing, and it’s a way to add shading and make your lines look smoother without adding a bunch of extra colors.

I like to add it wherever the lines look boring or where a lot of contrast is going on, just to smooth it out. Also notice that it’s only inside the lines, putting it outside can look messy.

These are just a couple things you can do to make your pixel art look cleaner, there’s probably plenty of other techniques you can use that I don’t know about; I’m more of a lineless person.

You don’t have to use these, in fact some styles can look great without them. This is just stuff I like to do because I think it looks nice. Thank you for reading! :)

[saultoons]

Isometric Pixel Art Tutorial :D

[nighttimepixels]

Hello! I'm a bit new to making pixel art and I was curious if you have any suggestions on picture sizes that will maintain resolution on tumblr? I've found that it's very difficult to size pixel art in a way that doesn't make it look like garbage once it's uploaded.

oh, lovely anon, you’ve stumbled upon the greatest bane to any pixel artist’s existence: resolution when posting... especially on Tumblr.

see, Tumblr does this nightmare thing where it super-anti-aliases (ie, ‘blurs’ the boundaries between colors) pictures. this is unnoticeable in photography (usually), but most artists, even non-pixel artists, hit this struggle. it’s why so many of us will mention at least periodically ‘click for full resolution’ - it makes a huge difference in visible quality.

to answer your question, though, my best advice is just to make sure your final resolution is of HD quality! my process usually simplifies down to this:

1) make the art in ‘1x’ resolution (widest dimensions usually don’t go beyond 300px for ‘detailed’ pixel art, for me - 320 tends to be my max, but ‘smaller’ sprites may cap at 120 pixels, etc etc)

2) when exporting the art, i choose to multiply it’s size (i use Asesprite, a pixel art program with this option built in, but if you’re in photoshop/etc, you can choose to multiply the resolution by whole numbers, and choose no anti-aliasing as an option for this to keep it from blurring). in general, you’ll probably want to make the ‘final resolution’ at least greater that 1000px on one side, but you can play with what works for you.

that’s really about it! showing pixel art as ‘large’ as i or other pixel artists do is really about expanding the sprite size (not the canvas size). sometimes you’ll see pixel artists have multiple versions in the same picture, too, for comparison. i usually have the ‘big version’ in the photo post, and then the 1x version below in the text entry area, where it won’t get distorted.

Extra Tip: if you ONLY want to show the 1x resolution - or 2x, but still <500px wide - then just put your image in a text post! the downside to this is that you won’t be able to click on it to ‘zoom in’/isolate the image, but if that’s the size you want anyways, you should be fine.

Warning regarding this technique-

unless you’re sure to make your canvas ~500 px wide, Tumblr mobile, hell app that it is, will not show the 1x resolution properly. Tumblr has built-in coding that automatically tries to expand the image to fit the width of the post window, so... weight your choices, basically.

a Tumblr text post is 500 px wide (though sometimes 540, so... godspeed), so if you make the canvas 500 px wide and then export it - with your sprite still at it’s normal small dimensions within that - then it should combat this issue. it’s just frustrating  extra hoops is all. =v=;;;