In the previous section, I spent a lot of time going over the importance of form and light sources. I tried to convey the importance of creating forms from shining light onto silhouettes—an approach to spriting that emphasizes depth in three-dimensional space. Today, we’re going to make use of that technique and create a sprite base. Continue reading
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If you’ve been following from the beginning, now you understand the importance of colors, and just how crucial contrast is. You’ve even developed a color palette of your own. It’s finally time to put that knowledge to use.
We’re going to start off by covering the basics (more basics?): form and light. In my introduction, I stated that my goal with this series isn’t to create a “how-to” guide, but to help educate and train your mind so that you have the knowledge and skills to become a good pixel artist. The most aspect of that method of teaching is that it’s important to get you thinking about your pixels in the right way. So here’s something that’s important to remember: When you create something with pixel art, you want to think three-dimensionally. This is true of any kind of art, not just pixel art. Continue reading
What is the most important part of a story? If you said “the characters” then congratulations—you’re right!
At the heart of every story, in every medium (a book, movie, tv series, a game, or anything else with a story), are the characters. The characters are how we identify the story, how we interact with it, and most importantly the characters DRIVE the story. In fact, I am of the school of thought that the CHARACTERS ARE THE STORY. Continue reading
It’s time for me to talk about one of my favorite things: story structure! And i’m not being sarcastic, either—I was all about creative writing in college and I always got a huge hardon for story structure. the cool thing about it is that it’s everywhere! Every book you read, every movie you watch, every play you see on the stage—no matter how different these stories are, they all have one thing that HOLDS IT TOGETHER, and that’s a solid structure. Continue reading
Before I dive into the creation of color palettes, I want to explain how to maximize each color, to get the most out of every color in your palette. Here’s an example color ramp: Continue reading
It’s time to talk a little more in-depth about my buddy contrast.
Yup, we’re going to have a whole section on contrast. It might seem a little boring, but pay attention: everything else in this tutorial series is going to hinge off of the concept that I present to you here. I say that I want to get you to think in terms of color and contrast—what does that mean?
When you’re creating a sprite, you have a limited amount of colors to work with (these days, you might not have a limit on a technical level, but for the sake of consistency you want to conserve colors where you can. this is why people create palettes, which I’ll be covering soon). You also have limited space—extremely limited. The entire purpose of pixel art is to create small images (typically sprites and tiles for games with tiny resolutions). Small enough that each and every pixel—that means each and every color—will affect the look of the piece. The goal of a great pixel artist is to get the most out of each individual pixel. This is achieved by using the right color on the right pixel—that’s easy enough to grasp. Continue reading