Ashbad's Pixel Art Tutorial

[zeldaking]

I finished getting all my lines down to one pixel. How does it look?

I do need to change some stuff, including his stoner eyes. So it should look better. Now for basic coloring! Woohoo Pixel art is enjoyable and fun.

[Ashbad]

Much better There are many places I would get rid of jaggies though, mostly in the lower and mid tunic, and in the cap/top of link's hair.

As for what jaggies are: http://www.derekyu.com/?page_id=221

EDIT:

I also highly encourage you play around with his posture, expression, etc. after fixing jaggies up. What works on pencil and paper, may not work with pixels. For an example, here's what I'm actually working on right now:



The one on the left is the original sketch (I scanned in my pencil+paper sketch with my printer, dropped it to 16 colors, and then further monotoned it) And the one on the right is what it looks like after an hour or so of editing. As you can see, it looks very different; I changed my mind a lot during the process, and as a result was able to fix all of the anatomy issues.
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-Ashbad

[zeldaking]

That's a good idea. I'll play around with it when I have time tomorrow.

[zeldaking]

Okay I think I have those lines better, what do you think?

[Ashbad]

[turiqwalrus]

[zeldaking]

Haha! I think I am getting closer. I fixed some things so it looks more appeasing. What would you guys say/think?

I am getting closer to the coloration stage, which I can't wait!

[Ashbad]

coming along much nicer! I still see a few things here and there, but it's a very nice improvement. I think you can fix them later though and start playing around with color choices try coming up with a few shades for the coloration, post them here (with them filled into the actual piece), and I'll give tips if you want.

EDIT: on a side note, I'm looking back at the sprite used as the example in this tutorial; it looked *soooo* crappy it's almost embarrassing.
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-Ashbad

[zeldaking]

Woohoo coloring time! Hmm I will try a few greens out, and post them.
Last edit before coloring, then I can adjust after alaising.

[Ashbad]

[zeldaking]

Okay I was thinking about fixing the arm and hands

I need to curve the arm a bit and fix the karate chop hand

[Ashbad]

[zeldaking]

Here is Link with the basic coloring done. Do you think these colors are fine?

I am hoping I learn from this one, so in the future it goes faster

[Ashbad]

Nice color choices, but I suggest you tone down the color's saturations (in paint, just look at the HSL values, and simply lower the S/Sat one to start, then going to the L/Lum value and lowering those a bit to your desire. Your colors are a bit bright as well, hence the suggestion to play with the Lum value)




On a side note, a friend asked me "what the most fun and least fun part of pixeling? What's the hardest part?" The question is pretty vague, but he meant it more in the sense of actual steps I take during the creation process, not about pixeling in general. I'm not sure which is the most fun phase of making a pixel, and what's the hardest. Here's my take on all of the parts:

- Conceptualization: I always do this with pencil and paper, juggling around ideas until I come up with something pretty decent. Takes a while because this is where you have to figure out what the sprite will roughly look like in the end. Fun because it's probably the most creative phase.

- Baselining: The actual creation of either lineart or layered pixel clusters of your idea for the sprite. Hard because this is where the outline of the pixel should be essentially finalized and pixel-perfect.  Fun because it's where you take your ideas from the conceptualization phase and make them actually happen.

- Colorizing/Palette picking: Picking of base colors and shades of colors that will populate your piece and bring it from the plain lineart (usually when working with clusters instead, however, this step goes before baselining) into lively color (or unlively, if you pick dismal colors; it's really all up to the subject and your concepts)

- Shading: the creation of a fake light source in your piece from which you cast a glare and shadows onto the actual subject.  Hard because it's where you have to decide how to give your piece dimension. Fun because afterwards, the piece looks a lot more refined.

- Details: the adding of misc. things to your piece; varies greatly between pieces. Hard because you have to figure out where to add things that don't take away from your piece, but rather add a special something onto them. Fun because it's when you get to really add a bunch of jazz in that wasn't depicted in earlier stages/concepts.

- Refinement: for me, it usually entails manual anti-aliasing and selective outlining. Hard because you can really mess up a piece if you don't do these correctly. Fun because the actual process itself isn't hard as long as you do it right, and the output makes anything before it look super polished.

- Revision: probably what I can call the hardest, most painful part. You go back and revise whatever you find wrong, be it anatomy, shading issues, readability issues, bad symbolism, whatever. Hard because even a small fix by this point in the piece can take a while. Fun because... well, it's not really fun. But you'll feel proud about a piece once it's gone through at least a revision pass or two.

From this, I'd say that Revision is the hardest stage, Refinement is the most boring phase, and the Conceptualization and Baselining are the most fun stages.

Of course, these stages vary between pixel artists; these are simply the steps I go through in chronological order for basically everything I make. Some people don't do Refinement, some people add in other stages that I don't find useful but they find critical to their pixeling, etc.; it's all about what works best for you.

What steps do *you* take when pixeling?  What do you find the most fun, boring, hard? I'm curious to hear what the great artists here have to input, I'd love to learn about the creative processes of other people (might even affect what I do in my process!)
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-Ashbad

[Spenceboy98]

I'm starting a new Pony Pixel:



I got out as many of the sharp corners as I could see. Opinions Please.

[Ashbad]

[zeldaking]

Sadly I lost (deleted?) my zelda pixel art on accident. I really don't feel like restarting either

[Ashbad]

[Spenceboy98]

Better?

Edit: I'm going to add the base colors now.

[Spenceboy98]

*Bump*
How do you like colors?