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Advice on Making Pixel Art

Wayward Son

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As the title states, I'm having trouble wit making pixel art. My main problem, at least from my perspective, is that the proportion always seems off, or the character doesn't fit the size constraints of what I need. Does anybody on here that's experienced with making that type of graphics have any advice?
 

Bigg Boss

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As the title states, I'm having trouble wit making pixel art. My main problem, at least from my perspective, is that the proportion always seems off, or the character doesn't fit the size constraints of what I need. Does anybody on here that's experienced with making that type of graphics have any advice?

Practice makes perfect when it comes to art. When it comes to digital art often times the program you use is essential. What kind are you doing? 2D or 3D or what? If you need to do more than one frame of animation consider using a program to save time, as in don't do every little pixel by hand. At the very least use Photoshop or something.
 

Mustawd

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All of this is awful advice. WWS is my bro, but this nigga doesn’t ever finish anything.

We should bully him till he finishes a single LP.
 
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Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
find a game that has characters of the size and proportion you want and draw yours on top of theirs.

i recommend drawing a "mold" first and then you can make characters off that, like this dude does here:

https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=45096.0

If you're REALLY having trouble you can go on fiverr and hire an artist to make a mold for you
 
Last edited:

Bigg Boss

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find a game that has characters of the size and proportion you want and draw yours on top of theirs.

i recommend drawing a "mold" first and then you can make characters off that, like this dude does here:

https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=45096.0

If you're REALLY having trouble you can go on fiverr and hire an artist to make a mold for you

This worked for me with Doom sprites. Slade has a little pixel editor.
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
i use paint.net for all of my pixel art, it's simple, well designed while still being reasonably powerful (not that you need much for pixel art)
 

Mustawd

Guest
find a game that has characters of the size and proportion you want and draw yours on top of theirs.

sound advice


SBt4YDQ.png



IG_101_1.jpg



traced outline and major proportions and made a nice sprite. My second thing ever in digital painting. So it’s not super hard to make something passable if you are good at painting minis IRL.
 

SkaldRPG

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As the title states, I'm having trouble wit making pixel art. My main problem, at least from my perspective, is that the proportion always seems off, or the character doesn't fit the size constraints of what I need. Does anybody on here that's experienced with making that type of graphics have any advice?

If you can tell us more about the specs for your game it would be a lot easier to give you advice. Perhaps if you have a certain look your going for or another game you want your art to look like.

In any case, it does take a lot of practice but is a lot of fun.
 

d1nolore

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How do you do animation? Do you have to draw/edit each sprite? Or is there an easier way?

I did this once it took ages to get one character animated for walk up/down/left/right as I edited/drew each frame.
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
How do you do animation? Do you have to draw/edit each sprite? Or is there an easier way?

I did this once it took ages to get one character animated for walk up/down/left/right as I edited/drew each frame.

For low res ones yes.

For higher res ones you can use a skeleton animation system (i used a free shitty one but it worked pretty well with hand drawn cartoon characters). This only works well for games with intentionally 2d looking characters (side scrollers, beat-em ups).

If you want high res graphics that look 3d (IE: Fallout or Starcraft) you can also make the core bodies in a 3d program, animate them there, take screenshots then add in the details by hand.
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
btw there is no easy way to make lots of graphics (other than to pay someone to do them for you). There are shortcuts but shortcuts just shorten the path, you still have to walk it, and unless you make really simple games it's a marathon, not a sprint.

I know it's tedious and an insurmountable path for most indie devs, but there's a reason why most projects end up abandonware. To actually finish a game is a mark of distinction, reserved only for the chosen few.
 

Nathaniel3W

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Practice.

And show other people your work and ask for feedback. Everyone on the Codex will gladly tell you that you suck. A few of us will give you helpful feedback on how you can improve.
 

Krice

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With tiles less than 32x32 (or even bigger) you can throw away any proportion rules. The main point in tiles is draw them so that the player can actually see and understand what the thing is supposed to be. I've seen lots of bad tiles for the same reason, something like 2x2 pixel gold coin and you are thinking about if it's a piece of cheese or what. In small tiles simpler style is better than "realistic" in my opinion, but both can be applied.
 
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Post your work or we won't understand the problems.
I sort of disagree with "practice makes perfect", its just too general a maxim to be useful.
I've found its best to make an attempt and keep working the idea, and then when your done try to reflect what went wrong/right.
Proportions are one of the most annoying issues with drawing. Planning is essential, create a template that has the correct proportions and work with that as a starting point (kind of like tracing paper).
Don't be afraid of cheating.
 
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A bit of a tangent comment here on "Practice". Its just too obvious to be useful. What does "practice" really mean? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/practice

Its a bit like asking a richman how to get wealthy and says "hard work". "Breathing", would be an equally valid answer.

Its not useful information to state the obvious. In fact its bloody frustrating advice to hear and makes my blood boil, because its not helpful.

Instead, you can greatly reduce the amount of effort you put into learning art by intelligent study. Yes, you will need to do studies, but just "practice" in practice, can often mean repeating and learning mistakes.
Why waste time learning mistakes? So, no don't just "practice". Undertake intelligent study.

For example, in hindsight I wasted so much time with art because I was perceiving the world as 2D lines. I would try to represent an object using lines, and then shading.
I know now that I wasted so much time practicing that (just "practice" right?). What I needed was to learn how to observe the world differently. That is, understand form and light.
Resist the urge to represent using clean lines (unless you want to go for that line art look). You can represent the world in many different ways, even just random scribbles can encode incredible information to the brain.

Don't just "practice" on a problem.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Completely disagree. 98% of what people lack is practice. It doesn’t matter what kind in any shape or form.

Building the habit of practice is key to learning any skill.

I’ve been around enough to learn that actually getting up and doing stuff is what many people lack. And if that person doesn’t have the drive to do that then any serious advice is a waste of your and their time.
 
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Completely disagree. 98% of what people lack is practice. It doesn’t matter what kind in any shape or form.

Building the habit of practice is key to learning any skill.

I’ve been around enough to learn that actually getting up and doing stuff is what many people lack. And if that person doesn’t have the drive to do that then any serious advice is a waste of your and their time.

This is why 98% of people never get anywhere. They don't know "how" to practice. The human brain is a filter. If you pour crap through it, over time it learns to ignore it or mould to it. This is why "practice" alone is ineffective.
Now, if you can learn to do something correct, and then repeat it, yes then you are onto something golden. Keep practicing that.
 

Alex

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Completely disagree. 98% of what people lack is practice. It doesn’t matter what kind in any shape or form.

Building the habit of practice is key to learning any skill.

I’ve been around enough to learn that actually getting up and doing stuff is what many people lack. And if that person doesn’t have the drive to do that then any serious advice is a waste of your and their time.

So, what you are saying is that the OP should... carry on?
 

Krice

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This is why 98% of people never get anywhere. They don't know "how" to practice.

Everyone can practice, but it's certain that only some people become good at it. It may be surprising to realize this, but there are people who can't tell when art looks good. That's why they can never become good artists.
 

Nathaniel3W

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Anyone can learn to draw, and anyone can learn when something looks right or wrong. Maybe it requires a teacher, or a tutorial, or some kind of example of what's good and bad. But anyone can learn.

I'll grant that maybe the "just practice" mantra is a little simplified. But I honestly think it's not far off. If you want to do something well, by far the most important step is just doing it, and then doing it over and over again. Draw something. If it looks like crap, try again until it doesn't look like crap to you. Then show it to someone who is a better artist than you, or show it to a bunch of random losers on the internet, and ask how you can improve. Then try following their advice, and see if it looks better. Repeat.
 
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I don't know. I really believe you can "practice" too much and it actually makes you worse. I'd really be careful with how you "practice" and not mess around when learning or you waste a lot of time.
I've learned this lesson the hard way with several other disciplines I tried to master. Playing classical guitar over twenty years and playing up to 6-7 hours a day sometimes, because thats what some people said to do. Trying this and that random internet article on how to improve - I still can't play convincingly over level 4!
I now know more than 2 hrs a day in counter productive and short quality training "bursts" with long recovery periods are how to do it (I think I read this in a study done by FC Barcelona), but with music I burned out long ago.
I guess it would be more beneficial to do three art studies taking five minutes a day (total fifteen minutes a day) over six weeks, than just doing one huge study a day taking two hours over one year. Do you see what I am getting at?
How you practice is very critical to succeeding or failing.
 

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