Pixel drawings in paint. Some old things

In this 10-step How to Draw Pixel Art tutorial, I'll teach you how to create a "sprite" (a single 2D character or object). The term itself, of course, comes from video games.

I learned how to create pixel art because I needed it for the graphics in my game. After years of training, I got the hang of it and began to understand that pixel art is more of an art than just a tool. Today, pixel art is very popular among game developers and illustrators.

This tutorial was created many years ago to teach people the simple concepts of creating pixel art, but has been updated many times so that it is significantly different from the original version. There are many tutorials on the Internet on the same topic, but they all seem too complicated or drawn-out to me. pixel art is not science. You shouldn't calculate vectors when creating pixel art.

Tools

One of the main advantages of creating pixel art is that you don't need any advanced tools - the default graphics editor installed on your computer should be enough. It's worth mentioning that there are programs designed specifically for creating pixel art, like Pro Motion or Pixen (for Mac users). I haven't tested them myself, but I've heard a lot positive feedback. In this tutorial I'll be using Photoshop, which, although expensive, contains a lot of useful tools for creating art, some of which are very useful for pixelating.

How to draw pixel art in Photoshop

When using Photoshop, your main weapon will be the Pencil tool (B key), which is an alternative to the Brush tool. The pencil allows you to color in individual pixels without overlapping colors.

We will need two more tools: “Selection” (M key) and “Magic Wand” (W key) in order to select and drag, or copy and paste. Remember that by holding down the Alt or Shift key while making a selection, you can add selected objects or exclude them from the current selection list. This is useful when you need to select uneven objects.

You can also use an eyedropper to transfer colors. There are a thousand reasons why preserving colors in pixel art is important, so you'll want to grab a few colors and use them over and over again.

Finally, make sure you remember all the hotkeys, as this can save you a lot of time. Notice the "X" that switches between the primary and secondary colors.

Lines

Pixels are the same small colored squares. First you need to understand how to effectively arrange these squares to create the line you want. We will look at the two most common types of lines: straight and curved.

Straight lines

I know what you're thinking: everything here is so simple that there's no point in going into anything. But when it comes to pixels, even straight lines can become a problem. We need to avoid jagged parts - small pieces of line that make it look uneven. They appear if one part of the line is larger or smaller than the others surrounding it.

Curved lines

Drawing curved lines, you need to make sure that the decline or rise is uniform along the entire length. IN in this example, a neat line has intervals 6 > 3 > 2 > 1, but a line with intervals 3 > 1< 3 выглядит зазубренной.

The ability to draw lines is a key element of pixel art. A little further I will tell you about anti-aliasing.

Conceptualization

To get started you will need good idea! Try to visualize what you are going to do in pixel art - on paper or just in your mind. Once you have an idea of ​​the drawing, you can concentrate on the pixelation itself.

Topics for Thought

• What will this sprite be used for? Is it for a website or a game? Will it be necessary to make it animated later? If so, then it will need to be made smaller and less detailed. Conversely, if you don't work with the sprite in the future, you can attach as many parts to it as you need. Therefore, decide in advance what exactly this sprite is needed for and select the optimal parameters.
• What restrictions are there? Earlier I mentioned the importance of preserving flowers. The main reason is the limited color palette due to system requirements (which is extremely unlikely in our time) or for compatibility. Or for accuracy if you are emulating a particular style of C64, NES, etc. It's also worth considering the dimensions of your sprite and whether it stands out too much from the background objects you need.

Let's try!

There are no restrictions in this tutorial, but I wanted to make sure that my pixel art would be large enough so that you could see in detail what happens in each of the steps. To this end, I decided to use Lucha Lawyer, a character from the world of wrestling, as a model. It would fit perfectly into a fighting game or fast-paced action game.

Circuit

The black outline will be a good base for your sprite, so that's where we'll start. We chose black because it looks good, but is also a little dark. Later in the tutorial I will tell you how to change the color of the outline to increase realism.

There are two approaches to creating a contour. You can draw the outline by hand and then adjust it a little, or you can draw everything one pixel at a time. Yes, you understood everything correctly, we are talking about a thousand clicks.

The method you choose depends on the size of the sprite and your pixelating skills. If the sprite is really huge, then it would be more logical to draw it by hand to create a rough shape, and then trim it. Believe me, it's much faster than trying to draw the perfect sketch right away.

In my tutorial I create a fairly large sprite, so the first method will be shown here. It will be easier if I show everything clearly and explain what happened.

Step one: rough outline

Using your mouse or tablet, draw a rough outline for your sprite. Make sure it's NOT TOO raw, meaning it looks roughly the way you see your final product.

My sketch almost completely coincided with what I had planned.

Step Two: Polish the Outline

Start by enlarging the image by 6 or 8 times. You should see every pixel clearly. And then clean up the outline. In particular, it's worth paying attention to the "stray pixels" (the entire outline should be no more than one pixel thick), get rid of the jagged edges, and add the little details we missed in the first step.

Even large sprites very rarely exceed 200 by 200 pixels. The phrase “do more with less” is a great way to describe the pixelation process. You'll soon see that even one pixel matters.

Simplify your outline as much as possible. We'll get into the details later, now you need to work on finding the big pixels, such as, for example, muscle segmentation. Things don't look great right now, but be a little patient.

Color

When the outline is ready, we get a kind of coloring sheet that needs to be filled in with colors. Paint, pouring and other tools will help us with this. Picking colors can be tricky, but color theory is clearly not the topic of this article. Be that as it may, there are a few basic concepts that you will need to know.

HSB color model

This is an English abbreviation made up of the words Hue, Saturation, Brightness. It is just one of many computer color models (or numerical representations of color). You've probably heard of other examples like RGB and CMYK. Most image editors use HSB for color selection, so we'll focus on that.

Hue– Hue is what we used to call color.

Saturation– Saturation – determines the intensity of the color. If the value is 100%, then this is the maximum brightness. If you lower it, then dullness will appear in the color and it will “grey”.

Brightness– light that emits color. For example, for a black person this indicator is 0%.

Choosing colors

Deciding which colors to choose is up to you, but there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Dull and desaturated colors look more realistic than cartoonish.
• Think about a color wheel: the further apart two colors are on the wheel, the worse they go together. At the same time, red and orange, which are in close proximity to each other, look great together.

• How more colors you use, the blurrier your drawing will look. Therefore, choose a couple of primary colors and use them. Remember that Super Mario, at one time, was created exclusively from combinations of brown and red.

Applying colors

Applying color is very simple. If you use Photoshop, then simply select the required fragment and select it with a magic wand(W key) and then fill it using the primary color (Alt-F) or secondary color Ctrl-F).

Shading

Shading is one of the most important parts of the quest to become a pixelation demigod. It is at this stage that the sprite either begins to look better or turns into a strange substance. Follow my instructions and you will definitely succeed.

Step one: choose a light source

First we choose a light source. If your sprite is part of a larger fragment that has its own lighting sources, such as lamps, torches, and so on. And they can all have different effects on how the sprite looks. Regardless, choosing a distant light source like the sun is a great idea for most pixel art. For games, for example, you will need to create the brightest possible sprite, which can then be adjusted to the environment.

I usually opt for a distant light somewhere up in front of the sprite, so that only the front and top of the sprite are illuminated and the rest is shaded.

Step two: direct shading

Once we have chosen a light source, we can begin to darken the areas that are furthest from it. Our lighting model dictates that the lower part of the head, arms, legs, etc. should be covered in shadow.

Let us remember that flat things cannot cast shadows. Take a piece of paper, crumple it up and roll it across the table. How did you realize that it was no longer flat? You just saw shadows around him. Use shading to emphasize folds in clothing, muscles, fur, skin color, and so on.

Step Three: Soft Shadows

The second shade, which lighter than the first, should be used to create soft shadows. This is necessary for areas that are not directly illuminated. They can also be used to transition from light to dark areas, and on uneven surfaces.

Step four: illuminated areas

Places that receive direct rays of light also need to be highlighted. It is worth noting that there should be fewer highlights than shadows, otherwise they will cause unnecessary attention, that is, they will stand out.

Save yourself the headache by remembering one simple rule: first the shadows, then the highlights. The reason is simple: if there are no shadows, too large fragments will be blown out, and when you apply shadows, they will have to be reduced.

A few useful rules

Shadows are always a challenge for beginners, so here are a few rules you need to follow while shading.

1. Don't use gradients. The most common mistake made by beginners. Gradients look terrible and don't even approximate how light plays on surfaces.
2. Don't use soft shading. I'm talking about a situation where the shadow is too far from the contour, because then it looks very blurry and prevents the light source from being identified.
3. Don't use too many shadows. It’s easy to think that “the more colors, the more realistic the picture.” Be that as it may, in real life We are used to seeing things in dark or light spectrums, and our brain will filter out everything in between. Use only two dark (dark and very dark) and two light (light and very light) and layer them over the base color, not on top of each other.
4. Don't use too similar colors. There's no real need to use nearly identical colors unless you want to make a really blurry sprite.

Dithering

Preserving colors is something that pixel art creators really need to pay attention to. Another way to get more shadows without using more colors is called dithering. Just like traditional painting uses “hatching” and “crosshatching”, that is, you literally get something in between two colors.

Simple example

Here's a simple example of how, through dithering, you can create four shading options from two colors.

Advanced example

Compare the image above (created using a gradient in Photoshop) with the image created with just three colors using dithering. Please note that different patterns can be used to create "adjacent colors". It will be easier for you to understand the principle if you create several patterns yourself.

Application

Dithering can give your sprite that wonderful retro look, as many early video games made heavy use of. this technique due to the small number of color palettes available (if you want to see a lot of examples of dithering, look at the games developed for the Sega Genesis). I myself do not use this method very often, but for educational purposes, I will show how it can be applied on our sprite.

You can use dither to your heart's content, but it's worth noting that only a few people use it really well.

Selective contouring

Selective contouring, also called selected outlining, is a subtype of contour shading. Instead of using a black line, we choose a color that will look more harmonious on your sprite. In addition, we change the brightness of this outline closer to the edges of the sprite, allowing the color source to determine which colors we should use.

Up to this point, we have used a black outline. There is nothing wrong with this: black looks great, and also allows the sprite to stand out from the surrounding objects. But by using this method, we sacrifice realism, which could be useful to us in some cases, since our sprite continues to look cartoonish. Selective contouring gets rid of this.

You'll notice that I used selaute to soften the definition of his muscles. Finally, our sprite starts to look like a single whole, rather than a huge number of separate fragments.

Compare this with the original:

1. Smoothing

The way smoothing works is simple: adding intermediate colors to the edges to make them look smoother. For example, if you have a black line on a white background, then small gray pixels will be added to its breaks along the edge.

Technique 1: Smoothing out kinks

In general, you need to add intermediate colors where there are kinks, otherwise the line will look jagged. If it still looks uneven, add another layer of lighter pixels. The direction of application of the intermediate layer must coincide with the direction of the curve.

I don't think I can explain it better without making it more complicated. Just look at the picture and you will understand what I mean.

Technique 2: Rounding the bumps

Technique 3: erasing line endings

Application

Now, let's apply anti-aliasing to our print. Note that if you want your sprite to look good against any background color, you shouldn't smooth the outside of the line. Otherwise, your sprite will have a very inappropriate halo around it where it meets the background, and will therefore stand out too clearly against any background.

The effect is very subtle, but it is of great importance.

Why do you need to do this manually?

You might ask, "Why not just apply a graphics editor filter to our sprite if we want it to look smooth?" The answer is also simple - no filter will make your sprite as clear and clean as handmade. You'll have complete control over not only the colors you use, but also where to use them. In addition, you know better than any filter where anti-aliasing will be appropriate, and where there are areas where the pixels will simply lose their quality.

Finishing

Wow, we're getting pretty close to the point where you can turn off your computer and grab a cold bottle of beer from the refrigerator. But it hasn't come yet! The last part is about what separates the avid amateur from the seasoned professional.

Take a step back and take a good look at your sprite. There is a possibility that it still looks "damp". Spend a little time perfecting and making sure everything is perfect. No matter how tired you already are, the fun part is ahead of you. Add details to make your sprite look more interesting. This is where your pixelating skills and experience come into play.

You might be surprised by the fact that all this time our Lucha Lawyer had no eyes, or that the package he was holding was empty. Actually, the reason lies in the fact that I wanted to wait a while small details. Also notice the trim I added to his headbands, the fly on his pants... and who would a person be without his nipples? I also darkened the lower part of his torso a little to make his arm stand out more against his body.

Finally you are done! Lucha Lawyer is lightweight, because it has only 45 colors (or it can be super heavy - it all depends on the limitations of your palette) and its resolution is approximately 150 by 115 pixels. Now you can open your beer!

Full progress:

It's always funny. Here's a GIF showing the evolution of our sprite.

1. Learn the basics of art and practice traditional techniques. All the knowledge and skills necessary for drawing and drawing can be applied to pixelating.
2. Start with small sprites. The hardest part is learning how to place a lot of detail using a minimum number of pixels so as not to make sprites as large as mine.
3. Study the work of artists you admire and don't be afraid to be unoriginal. The best way learning - repeating fragments of other people's work. It takes a lot of time to develop your own style.
4. If you don't have a tablet, buy one. Constant nervous breakdowns and stress caused by continuous left-clicking are not fun, and are unlikely to impress members of the opposite sex. I use a small Wacom Graphire2 - I like how compact and portable it is. You might prefer a larger tablet. Before purchasing, take a short test drive.
5. Share your work with others to get their opinions. This might also be a good way to make new geek friends.

P.S.

The original article is located. If you have links to cool tutorials that need to be translated, send them to our party. Or write directly to the group messages

In this article I'll show you how to create several different game sprites in Photoshop CC/CS6. For this we use pixel graphics:

Photoshop Settings

1. Create a new square document with sides ranging from 20 to 100 pixels ( depending on how big the sprite is). I'll be working with a 50 by 50 pixel canvas:

• Width: 50px;
• Height: 50px;
• Resolution: 72 dpi;
• Color mode: RGB (8-bit);
• Background content: Transparent.

2. Let's continue our pixel art lesson. Select the Pencil tool ( in the Brush tool drop-down menu) and set the brush size to 1 pixel. Select the “Eraser” tool and set its size to 1 pixel, Mode - Pencil:

3. To show where the graphics pixels will be located on the canvas, we'll turn on a grid. In chapter Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid and Fragments configure the grid parameters. Set the grid to display every pixel ( division - 1 pixel). Click the button OK" and then turn on the grid so you can see it. Go to Show > Show > Grid:

4. Another change, go back to Settings > General and change the image interpolation to " By adjacent pixels (preserves sharp edges)»:

Now everything is ready so we can start creating pixel art!

Character Creation

We'll start by creating a single character sprite.

1. Let's start with the 50 by 50 pixel file we created. I'll add a background layer with a solid color. After this we will be able to see the grid.

At the bottom of the Layers palette, click on the icon that looks like a half-filled circle. Select the “Color” option and set the new layer to a neutral fill color:

2. Add a new transparent layer on top of this color fill layer. Go to Layer > New > Layer or simply click the curled leaf icon in the menu at the bottom of the Layers palette.

3. Let's create the body of our character. Let's choose the main skin color. I'm using #f2cb9f color:

4. Using the Pencil tool, draw the body of a pixel art game character. I want to keep the body as simple as possible and then tweak it at the end. We'll add more details when we create the main shape.

Tip: For each new element, add an additional layer so you can come back later and adjust.

Tip: If you want to create a straight line, click once where you want to start it, and then hold down the Shift key and click where you want to end the line. Photoshop will automatically create a straight line between the two points.

You can create the body as you like. Here's how I did it:

• Click once on the canvas with a 15px pencil to create the head;
• Create a triangle ( downward), this will be the chest, and draw a neck on top of it ( using a 3 pixel pencil);
• Create the torso using another triangle ( upward) from below the triangle of the chest;
• Draw the legs from the bottom of the torso triangle;
• Place “dots” in the places where the arms will end. The character's one arm will be raised up and the other down. Hold down the Shift key and click on the edge of the shoulder to connect the shoulder and the end of the arm;
• Add the hands and feet of your pixel art game character;
• Now you can add or erase some pixels to adjust the shape of the body. I added a little more volume to the legs to thicken the neck and body and rounded the shoulders a bit.

5. Now we will add clothes, hair and face. Use basic form bodies as a template to create clothes. I want to add six new layers for the shirt, pants, shoes, hair, face and small details:

6. Photoshop file as it currently exists.

7. At this point in our guy's pixel art tutorial, we're done, but I want to add more depth with light and shadow.

Additional step, adding shadows:

Let's create a flattened copy of all layers. To do this, turn off the visibility of the color fill layer ( Click on the eye icon to the left of the layer thumbnail), then press Command-Option-Shift-E (Mac) or Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E (PC). This will automatically create a flattened copy of all visible layers on top of the rest of the layer stack.

Now I suggest placing the layers in a separate folder and turning off its visibility. To quickly group layers, select them and click on them, then press Ctrl / Option -G :

Figure 15: Press Command-Option-Shift-E (Mac) or Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E (PC) to create a flattened copy

8. Add a new layer and change its blending mode. The blending mode can be set using the drop-down menu at the top of the Layers palette, to the left of the Opacity option. By default in this pixel art program it is set to "Normal".

I want to select the Soft Light blending mode because it will darken the colors I used for the character nicely. With the new layer selected ( I'll call it "Shading"), while holding down the Alt key, click on the layer below ( flattened character layer) to create a mask. This way, everything you draw on the “Shading” layer will be visible within the “Character” layer mask:

9. Sketch the areas of the “Shading” layer with a black pencil. With the current blending mode, black will darken the color underneath. The red color of the shirt will turn dark red, green color the hair will turn dark green and so on.

Tip: If the shading is too harsh, change the layer's blending mode or opacity. If you want to add more shades of shaded colors, create new “Shading” layers with different opacity.

In the end, I ended up with two shadow layers: the first with 25% opacity, and the second with 45% opacity:

10. If you want to add highlights, create a new “Highlighting” layer in the same way as we added the “Shading” layer, just set the blending mode to “ Overlay" and use a white pencil.

11. Once you're happy with the look of your 8-bit character, it's time to save the final sprite as a PNG file. But first we have to trim the canvas so that it fits snugly around the pixel art game character image and doesn't have any extra space around the edges. This will allow us to reduce the file size. Turn off the visibility of the color fill layer, and then go to Image>Trimming and set the "Based on" parameter to - " Transparent pixels" Click the "OK" button.

Adobe Photoshop: Draw and animate a character using Pixel Art technique

In this lesson you will learn how to draw and animate characters using the Pixel Art technique. To do this, you only need Adobe Photoshop. The result will be a GIF with a running astronaut.

Program: Adobe Photoshop Difficulty: beginners, average level Time required: 30 min – hour

I. Setting up the document and tools

Step 1

Select Pencil from the toolbar - this will be the main tool for our lesson. In the settings, select the Hard Round brush type, and set the remaining values ​​as in the picture. Our goal is to make the pencil nib as sharp as possible.

Step 2

In the Eraser Tool (eraser) settings, select Pencil Mode, and set the remaining values ​​as shown in the picture.

Step 3

Turn on Pixel Grid (View > Show > Pixel Grid). If there is no such item in the menu, then go to the settings and enable graphics acceleration Preferences > Performance > Graphic acceleration.

Please note: The grid will only be visible on the newly created canvas when zoomed in at 600% or more.

Step 4

In Preferences > General (Control-K), change the image interpolation mode to Nearest Neighbor mode. This will allow the boundaries of objects to remain as clear as possible.

In the Units & Rulers settings, set the ruler units to pixels Preferences > Units & Rulers > Pixels.

II. Character Creation

Step 1

And now that everything is set up, we can proceed directly to drawing the character.

Sketch your character with a clear outline, being careful not to overload it with small details. At this stage, the color does not matter at all, the main thing is that the outline is clearly drawn and you understand how the character will look. This sketch was prepared specifically for this lesson.

Step 2

Reduce the scale of the sketch to 60 pixels in height using the keyboard shortcut Control+T, or Edit > Free Transform.

The size of the object is displayed in the information panel. Please note that the interpolation settings are the same as we did in step 4.

Step 3

Zoom in on the sketch by 300-400% to make it easier to work with and reduce the layer's opacity. Then create a new layer and draw the outlines of the sketch using the Pencil Tool. If the character is symmetrical, as in our case, you can outline only half, and then duplicate it and flip it as a mirror (Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal).

Rhythm: To draw complex elements break them into pieces. When the pixels (dots) in a line form a "rhythm" such as 1-2-3, or 1-1-2-2-3-3, the sketch looks smoother for human eye. But, if the form requires it, this rhythm can be disrupted.

Step 4

When the outline is ready, you can select the main colors and paint large forms. Do this on a separate layer below the outline.

Step 5

Smooth out the outline by drawing a shadow along the inner edge.

Continue adding shadows. As you may have noticed as you draw, some shapes can be corrected.

Step 6

Create a new layer for the highlights.

Select the Overlay blend mode from the drop-down list in the Layers panel. Draw light color over the areas you want to highlight. Then smooth out the highlights using Filter > Blur > Blur.

Complete the picture, then copy and mirror the finished half of the picture, then combine the layers with the halves to make a whole picture.

Step 7

Now the astronaut needs to add contrast. Use the Levels settings (Image > Adjustments > Levels) to make it brighter, and then adjust the hue using the Color Balance option (Image > Adjustments > Color Balance).

The character is now ready for animation.

III. Character Animation

Step 1

Create a copy of the layer (Layer > New > Layer Via Copy) and move it 1 pixel up and 2 pixels to the right. This is a key point in character animation.

Reduce the original layer's opacity by 50% so you can see the previous frame. This is called “Onion Skinning” (plural mode).

Step 2

Now bend your character's arms and legs as if he were running.

● Highlight left hand Lasso tool

● Using the FreeTransformTool (Edit > FreeTransform) and holding down the Control key, move the borders of the container so that the hand moves back.

● Select one leg first and stretch it a little. Then squeeze the other leg on the contrary so that it feels like the character is walking.

● Use a pencil and eraser to correct the part right hand below the elbow.

Step 3

Now you need to completely redraw the new position of the arms and legs as shown in the second section of this lesson. This is necessary to ensure that the image looks clear, because the transformation greatly distorts the pixel lines.

Step 4

Make a copy of the second layer and flip it horizontally. Now you have 1 basic pose and 2 in motion. Restore the opacity of all layers to 100%.

Step 5

Go to Window > Timeline to display the Timeline panel, and click Create Frame Animation.

Pixel Art (Pixel Art) - translated from English as pixel art. A pixel, in turn, is the smallest graphic element of a digital image.

So Pixel Art literally means the art of drawing with pixels.

Just for clarity, let’s look at this example:

Owlboy ( pixel art game)

This is what games with Pixel Art style graphics look like.

Very often, such graphics are used in indie games because they have a very recognizable computer gaming style.

However, Pixel Art is not only about graphics, sprites and pictures for games, this is a whole direction of digital and graphic art.

Beautiful pictures can be drawn using pixel art:

Don't confuse this with anything retro style graphics

Some paintings in this style are quite worthy of taking a place on your desktop.


There are very cool artists who works in this style.

Look at this picture. Each pixel here was drawn separately and manually. It’s like putting together a mosaic as they did before, and they still do it now.

If we enlarge this picture, we can see how everything is done up close:

The unique style of pixel art is that there are fairly clear color transitions and no anti-aliasing. For example, let's take another job in digital graphics pretty average, check this one out drawing of a girl with glasses(18+) on the blog www.econdude.pw.

This is a drawing with a computer mouse in the SAI2.0 program.

However, if you zoom in on this image, you can see the anti-aliasing:

There are no clear transitions of colors and shades, but in pixel art the transitions are clear.

For example, look at how you can make transitions between colors in pixel art:

This is an approximate image; if you look at it from afar with high resolution, the color transition will be quite smooth, but the clarity and consistency of the style is visible here.

Here's another example, this is a pretty classic pickle art style drawing:

http://www.gamer.ru/everything/pixel-art-dlya-nachinayuschih

When you get close, the pictures don't seem very beautiful, but if you look at pixel art from afar, with higher resolution, it can look wonderful.

Can you imagine the great work such artists do?

Sometimes they say that Pixel Art is done this way because it’s cheaper, they say that indie developers simply don’t have the resources to create modern 3D graphics, so they use the simplest thing they can think of, drawing in basic graphic editors pixels.

However, anyone who has drawn anything in the Pixel Art style will tell you that this is almost the most expensive graphics style in terms of resources (time, first of all).

Animation in the Pixel Art style is generally hellish work.

http://www.dinofarmgames.com/a-pixel-artist-renounces-pixel-art/

Therefore, it still needs to be proven that Pixel Art is a “lazy style”; I would even say that, on the contrary, it is not the least lazy graphics style.

However, anyone can learn to draw something simple in the Pixel Art style, and you don’t need any special programs, just a simple graphics editor.

If you want to learn how to draw in this style, you, as in any other case, need a lot of practice, and you can start, for example, with articles on Habré: Pixel art course

There you will also find the basic principles of pixel art.

Here is one example of how to draw pixel art (accelerated video - speed drawing) at the beginner level; you can learn how to draw like this in literally a week:

Pixelart:: drawing a spaceship

Sometimes they make some really crazy drawings in this style, you can’t even believe that a person drew it and you want to know how much time was spent on it. Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vChMzRnw-Hc

See this picture of Sarah Carrigan from StarCraft? What do you think this is and how is it made?

This man built it from blocks in the game Minecraft, the work took 23 weeks.

Looking closer, you can see that these are all separate blocks.

Formally, this is no longer pixel art, but even “minecraft block art”, but the essence of the style remains the same and this is the most large drawing pixel art and a world record, according to the author.

In fact, if you look closely at any photo or picture, it is obvious that it also consists of pixels, like any image in general. But the whole difference is that pixel art is created by hand, pixel by pixel.

Another example, artists and animators Paul Robertson and Ivan Dixon created this:

SIMPSONS PIXELS

It feels like a huge amount of work, and even if you used some additional tools (there are filters that turn pictures into pixel art), it would take a very long time.

Personally, I think that pictures in the Pixel Art style are the real thing modern Art in the very better sense this word.

Each Pixel Art picture has a very clear value and it is visible and felt.

Even a person who doesn’t understand this well can appreciate this.

However, unfortunately this genre art is not very popular and is now considered outdated, and a return to it in last years in the form of many games from steam in the style of pixel art, people are also starting to get bored. Although I personally think that this retro graphic style is already a classic, and a true classic will never die.

Pixel-level drawing has its niche in fine arts. With the help of simple pixels, real masterpieces are created. Of course, you can create such drawings on a sheet of paper, but it is much easier and more correct to create pictures using graphic editors. In this article we will analyze in detail each representative of such software.

The most popular in the world graphics editor, which is capable of working at the pixel level. To create such pictures in this editor, you just need to perform a few preliminary setup steps. Here is everything an artist needs to create art.

But on the other hand, such an abundance of functionality is not needed for drawing pixel art, so there is no point in overpaying for the program if you are going to use it only for a specific function. If you are one of such users, then we advise you to pay attention to other representatives who are focused specifically on pixel graphics.

PyxelEdit

This program has everything you need to create such paintings and is not oversaturated with functions that the artist will never need. Setting up is quite simple; the color palette allows you to change any color to the desired tone, and free movement of windows will help you customize the program for yourself.

PyxelEdit has a feature for setting tiles on the canvas, which can be useful when creating objects with similar content. The trial version is available for download on the official website and has no restrictions on use, so you can try the product before making a purchase.

Pixelformer

In appearance and functionality, this is the most ordinary graphics editor, but it only has several additional capabilities for creating pixel images. This is one of the few programs that are distributed absolutely free.

The developers do not position their product as suitable for creating pixel art, they call it an excellent way to draw logos and icons.

GraphicsGale

In almost all such software they try to implement a picture animation system, which most often turns out to be simply unusable due to limited functions and incorrect implementation. GraphicsGale is not so good with this either, but at least this function can work normally.

As for drawing, everything is exactly the same as in the majority of editors: basic functions, a large color palette, the ability to create several layers and nothing unnecessary that could interfere with work.

Charamaker

Character Maker 1999 is one of the oldest such programs. It was created to create individual characters or elements, which would then be used in other animation programs or implemented into computer games. Therefore, it is not very suitable for creating paintings.

The interface is not very good. Almost none of the windows can be moved or resized, and the default layout isn't very good. However, you can get used to it.

Pro Motion NG

This program is ideal in almost everything, starting with a well-thought-out interface, where it is possible to move windows independently of the main one to any point and change their size, and ending with an automatic switch from an eyedropper to a pencil, which is simply an incredibly convenient feature.

Otherwise, Pro Motion NG is just good software for creating pixel graphics of any level. The trial version can be downloaded from the official website and tested to decide whether to further purchase the full version.

Aseprite

Can rightfully be considered the most convenient and beautiful program to create pixel art. The interface design alone is worth it, but that’s not all the advantages of Aseprite. There is the ability to animate a picture, but unlike previous representatives, it is implemented competently and easy to use. There is everything you need to create beautiful GIF animations.