Starting Out

Interested in pixel art, or doing some art yourself? There are different kinds to learn. I started out learning the isometric style of pixel art. For those of you that don't really know what that is, it's a style where you have an angled viewpoint on whatever you're looking at, so you can see all three dimensions of the drawing. Most of these drawings are done in MS Paint, believe it or not. The interface is fairly straight forward and easy to use. Then later you can add transparency layers with GIMP or Photoshop. Generally most web tutorials I've seen will start you out drawing a cube since it's fairly simple. Then the cube is turned into something like the following--an unfinished drawing I made when I first started learning how to draw:

As you can see, it's very cube-like in shape, and most of the other elements are as well. When people ask me for art advice, I send them to online tutorials that show you how to draw cubes, spheres, cylinders, and other 3D geometric shapes. Then they will learn how to properly shade the shapes, choose a source of light, and adjust the colors of the sides and edges based on the light source. This is another reason why cubes are chosen--due to their having three visible sides. Note on the drawing that the top is the brightest, the side on the left is less bright, and the side on the right is the dimmest. This means the light is coming from somewhere on the top left of the image.

Once you have learned how to properly draw basic shapes, you can practice drawing other things too. I started out drawing things I thought would be fun, such as swords and gems. From there you can only improve by lots of practice, drawing as many different things as you can, and studying or learning from other artists. Luckily, there is an increasing demand for pixel art due to the success of games using this style. Even in recent times, games such as Hotline Miami, Stardew Valley, Terraria, Cave Story, and Starbound (as well as others) prove that there is not only a demand for this type of art, but that it is still relevant and contributes to a successful product.

Pixel art is also extremely small in size, making it a much better use for indie developers who don't want to pay large amounts of money for expensive graphics. One of my key selling points is that this art style is extremely useful for startup developers and browser-based games that need to use bandwidth efficiently. 95% of all the art I've drawn is under 1KB in size, though the actual size may vary depending on how your hard drive saves information.

Doing this type of pixel art does involve a bit of patience. A lot of friends I've spoken to say they would "go mad" drawing things "dot by dot". When I first started, I found drawing in this style extremely relaxing and fun. It gave me something to focus my creativity and attention toward. So I suppose it does depend on the individual. But if you're interested in learning, send me a message or comment on this post and I'll make make a few tutorials. Take care!