#pixel art tutorial

[tofupixel]

tutorial for how to draw these ball style shrubs from my scene above (cos a friend asked)

have fun all

💕 My full pixel art guide: So You Want To Learn Pixel Art?

[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 :)

[adagiorii]

How do you do your little goobers in pixel art??

Could you give us a little tuto please !!

Sure!

You can draw them in either MS Paint (which is what I used to do) or Clip Studio Paint, the software I primarily use. This probably works in every other art software though.

First, you make your canvas really tiny. 100x100 is a good measure, you can adjust it later if you want. The important thing is that it's small enough to look like pixel art. In Clip Studio Paint, I use the default Dot Pen brush, which is 1 pixel thick and is pretty good for the lineart I do for the pixel chibis.

I recommend CSP (or any other more advanced art software) over MS Paint just because of it being more advanced. MS Paint has become better for this since the layers update but I'd say it's still easier to just use the software you're most used to. Especially if it's relatively advanced (for example, MS Paint has layers but not layer modes which makes shading and lighting harder)

For the coloring, you can use either the Dot Pen or the default Milli Pen brush above whose size you can alter (unlike the Dot Pen). Just set it to 2 or 3, or 4, around that range, whichever size works best for you, so you can color a larger area. You can also use the bucket tool if you prefer, but make sure to toggle off anti-aliasing

Also, don't use the eraser tool to erase anything. Even if it's set at 1 pixel, and at no anti-aliasing, for some reason it still doesn't work properly for me. What I do is use the brushes I mentioned before, but set their colour to transparent. It works perfectly as an eraser. You can set it to transparent by clicking on the transparent icon below the colours, here:

That aside, I draw them the way I draw all my art pretty much... I don't do a lot of shading but when I do I use layers set to Multiply for shading and Overlay for lighting. I colour parts of the lineart with a mask layer, and that's about it.

For the pixel chibis specifically, I used to have a base for their bodies that I drew on MS Paint (I don't know what happened to it I think I just deleted it unfortunately), but now I just take one of the already made pixel chibis that matches the proportions of the new one I want to draw and trace over parts of it or just draw them a new head. For example, I've done this with most female Eidolon PCD agent OCs because they all usually have the same uniform just with minor changes, which are easy to make.

I'm sorry if this was a bit of a lackluster tutorial, I really don't know how to do tutorials lol. Hope it answered the questions you had though

[dreamspace3d]

I just read through your pinned post and now I'm compelled to ask how you do your pixel style in Clip Studio? correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's SO COOL how you're able to achieve that style on a larger canvas LOL!! I've tried to mess around with my brush settings but for some reason I can never get it to be sharp enough haha

Ho hooo! I can help you with that!!

Pixel Art in Clip Studio Guide

Create your canvas! The trick is you need to work on a REALLY SMALL canvas to get a pixelated look. A 3DS screen is 320x240 pixels, so I make my canvas this size. If you need bigger pixels, work on an even smaller canvas!

1. Change your unit to pixels

2. Type in your canvas size

3. Click OK

Now we need to tell our brushes to keep their hard edges. I just change this on my pen and eraser because I don’t use much else when creating pixel art.

4. Click on your tool

5. Choose Tool Property

6. Choose the first setting under Anti-Aliasing

Proceed to draw whatever you like!! Blue volunteered, I swear!

Once you’re done we’ll need to export the art. There’s a few settings we’ll need to change, otherwise your pixels will be blurry like this:

Our device screens try to help terribly small images look better by smoothing out the pixels. There’s just not enough pixels for the screen to show you the image correctly. So we’ll add more!

7. Click Edit

8. Click Change Image Resolution

We’ll be scaling the image up! The goal is to get your pixel dimensions up to around 1000 pixels since that’s plenty of pixels for your modern screen to work with.

9. Change your scale (I stick with even numbers and typically go with 4. If you work on a smaller canvas, you’ll definitely need a higher number.)

10. Choose Hard Edges (nearest neighbor) for your interpolation method. (I can explain this in detail to those interested)

11. Click OK

Now you’re good to go to export your pixel art! You’ll be able to tell by checking your canvas size by your file name. You’re free to export your image how ever you like!

I hope this helped @rileymorph!

[opossun]

Do you have any tips for someone who’s just starting out in pixel art? I really love your work! Cant wait to see more ❤️

Omg firstly thank you so much for the kind words!! I'm not very good at explaining things (english is not my first language so i fumble a lot ;-;) but I can at least share my pixel art process and a few tips that may or may not be useful!

I always start sketching the original drawing in a bigger canvas (in this case, a big ol 1843x1659) and I use bright colors to mark important details that I want to highlight when working at the pixel

After the sketch is done, I send it to the pixel art program (I like to use aseprite, but it also works on paint tool sai because it has a binary pen! Since Paint tool sai is more accessible I will be using it for my examples) In vocare's case (this dragon i'm working on) I want a big pixel so I will use it for her bio, so I chose the size 350x300. You will then use the transformation tool to make it fit this canvas, and don't worry about losing some details because we got that "trust the process" mentality going on

Important: Do NOT work with a white background, ever. It will actually ruin your eyes, so change the background to a grey / dark grey

When working on your lineart, avoid doing these double pixel lines unless you want a sharper edge or a thicker line (like closed eyes for example, to give it some weight) I do that to keep consistency on my linework :D

Dithering, dithering, dithering

the way i work shading on pixel art is by hand filling pixel by pixel with dithering. Aseprite has auto-dithering but I don't consider it reliable and it limits the way you shade things. The first example I use for big areas of shading (Like wings), the second I use for metals and gold, and the third is the normal dithering I use for my pixels :D

The power of highlights

Sometimes you will find a dragon that has Too much going on, and the highlights will help you feature important parts of the dragon (for example on my boy solis, I wanted to feathre his tail, wings, and skull!) The most important tip, actually

Always take your time working on pixel art, take breaks and stretch your wirst! Remember to save your progress, and never trust the auto save on these programs because they are sneaky little rascals

Hope I helped somehow!! :D

[mysunnyrose]

A quick pixel art tutorial on how I make lines and curves, I didn't go into detail about how to apply AA but I'll try to make a more extended tuto soon!

Higher res/static version here.

[1yunari1]

I have an idea to share the pixel art app I use on pixel art and how I use it, what do u think? ( the app have an animation feature as well )

جتني فكرة أسوي شرح للتطبيق إلي استخدمه للبيكسل هنا وش رأيكم؟

عندي تطبيقين ( واحد للجوالات والثاني للكمبيوتر )،

وبعد تحسون يكون العربي والإنجليزي في نفس البوست أو أفصلهم؟ لأن أحس بيطلع حوسة لو كانوا بنفس البوست

[dotsdallydilly]