• Beginner's Pixel Art Tutorial
    8 replies, posted
Many people do not seem to understand how to create pixel art properly, and often end up creating ugly messes of colour. I'm here to help. [IMG]http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/2972/44911651.png[/IMG] First of all, use balanced colours. Do not use a neon red or a dreary, washed out slightly reddish grey. The exception to this is when you are creating a stylized piece- for the former it's usually a retro or cartoon-styled piece, and for the latter it's usually something incredibly depressing- although, there are better ways to portray that. [IMG]http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/9398/46869764.png[/IMG] 1. Gradients are the devil. Never, under any circumstances, resort to using gradients. They are ugly. 2. Pillowshading is the devil's son. There is no definitive light source, and it just looks bad. 3. This style of shading doesn't even have a name, yet people still do it. It's usually done by amateurs who understand that pillowshading/gradients are bad, but they have no idea what else they should do. 4. Bevels are incredibly lazy. They make things look flat and boring. 5. Dithering is fine and all, but it is not the ultimate tool for all pixel-art. Over usage it will result in your piece either looking grainy, or looking like a slightly touched up gradient. If you want a proper peice, you're going to need to pick a light source and then shade from there. Using techniques like dithering combined with basic shading will eventually give you a good looking result. [IMG]http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/6954/37487087.png[/IMG] There are some contrast issues that I keep noticing. People will often use colours that are far too similar, or they'll randomly introduce a colour that is incredibly darker than the other colours in the piece. This is ugly. [IMG]http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/9963/45831411.png[/IMG] Most people, when making pixel art, tend to just pick a colour and make it darker for each new shade. This is a bad habit, as it makes your piece look sterile and boring. Using colour ramps, (As in, colours that progressively turn in to other, similar colours as they grow darker or lighter) you can make your piece look more refined and pleasing. Now you can make anything you want! You no longer need to learn things! Well, not exactly. [IMG]http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/4524/47328365.png[/IMG] If you really want to become good at pixel art, you're going to need to study whatever you're creating. If you are making a rock, you want people to look at it and think "Oh hey, that is a rock." and not "Oh hey, that is a blob." You must be able to learn new techniques for different things. Textures, how reflective the surface is, how shiny it is, how dull it is, etc. And when you're doing a full piece, you must take note of everything else in the picture when working on one thing. If the lightsource is coming from the top left, a sphere is in the center, and a blue-tinted mirror is on the bottom right, then perhaps the light is reflecting off of the mirror and hitting the sphere from the other side, thus producing blue highlights. [IMG]http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/7769/48882490.png[/IMG] You must also be sure that when taken out of context, certain thigns do not become incredibly ambiguous. If you take a patch of grass out of your piece and stare at it, can you tell it's grass? What if it's not? It could be anything that is green! If you're working on the scales of a dragon, don't just shade him green- give him scales, wrinkles, and other things you'd find on a dragon! That's all for now. I might make more.
This is really cool, but I think you also left room to expand. [editline]06:43PM[/editline] Don't expand for a while though, so people will practice these things before they get into the more complicated.
This is a great tutorial.
Nice tutorial.
The sphere shading looks very detailed for the type of PW we play here, but for pixel art it is pretty good.
These techniques can be applied to PW sprites as well, if done strategically.
There's no reason these can't be used in PW. If they were used in it, we'd have such awesome armies and battles.
You should add this to the stickey
Yeah.
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