Well timed. I've been going through this process as a non-artist forced to churn out some tiles for a game I'm building [1].
I started off simply cribbing all the tiles from Ultima IV for the Apple II, then gradually adding some rudimentary new tiles as the need arose. Starting with a pixel "rock" and "stick", changing the clothes on existing characters, then eventually gaining a bit of confidence and launching off on more complicated things. Eventually coming back and redoing all the "borrowed" tiles, and launching off into new, more detailed, characters and items.
"Constraints hide your flaws" got me a long way. I've relaxed those constraints a bit as I got better at shading, so it's easy to tell which tiles were drawn at what point in my "career"
[1] https://valtima4.com/, the Survival Crafting RPG you would have played on you Apple II in the '80s. It's essentially Valheim crammed into Ultima IV's interface.
Single player works up through the first couple bosses, but it's not really ready to ship into early access yet.
After classical art training, I thought pixel art would be fast and easy -- the low resolution would disguise any mistakes.
Quite the opposite. The fewer pixels, the more each one has to be perfectly in place. Honestly should've been obvious in hindsight. If I have any games left in me after my current one's finished, I'll just use as high a resolution as I'm comfortable with.
Unless the sprites are truly tiny, like 16x16 with 2 or 3 frame animations, I don't know if pixel art makes a good shortcut to an aesthetically appealing game. Then again, it might be easier than six years of every day practice.
More than a dozen artists I've talked to told me pixel art is entirely it's own discipline - they're no more comfortable approaching it than a layman would.
The traditional workflow of creating a rough sketch on paper or tablet then progressively refining it just entirely doesn't apply.
> Programmers are known to not have a strong suit for art related disciplines
Full stop. There are quite a few coders with artistic talents. And even if some specific individual does not have such talent, they are allowed to have their own taste - we do not need to train ourselves to mimic other people's preferences.
Just because they are "[generally] known" for not having artistic skills doesn't mean there can't be a few exceptions.
Besides, they could be known for this and it could be a misconception! The sentence is still true.
Finally, "full stop" is what you say when something isn't up for debate. It's like saying "Apple makes better hardware, period." Like the conversation ends there. It doesn't mean you stop reading.
Have you ever heard the famous "he did not have enough imagination to become a mathematician" quote?
There is a reason it is famous and it could be very much projected on programming.
Programming requires be creative.
So I don't know where did the "generally known" comes from. In my 20 years experience, I knew hundreds of programmers and probably majority of them were extremely artistic. Writing games as a hobby, drawing miniatures, some were writing books, music bands...
> Finally, "full stop" is what you say when something isn't up for debate.
Is it the only way you can say "full stop"? Can't you just say it to yourself in the way of "full stop, this shows ME this is based on wrong premise, and I don't need to waste time on keep reading it"
This debate strikes me as misguided. It's just basically "someone who's really good at one thing is unlikely to be really good at a second thing".
Well yeah, there are only so many hours you can put towards a thing. It's not a statement about programmers or artists, it's just about how effort works.
Why is it generally known? It's a completely anecdotal statement, that the author should have just avoided. General statements like that are hard or impossible to prove and insensitive to those it does do wrong.
Gotta agree, I used to draw portraits before I started programming a few years ago...
For reference, my last ever portrait:
https://imgur.com/a/sEQiLu4
I also know plenty of programmers who are great musicians. Programming itself is creative work...
Completely lost interest in art due to AI though.
I would wager that's how it goes for most people that are both good artists and good programmers -- they were artists first, then learned to program. It takes a lot longer to become a reasonably good artist than it does to become a reasonably good programmer. I suspect that might be why the article opens the way it does.
Good advice! I did pixel art for a personal project:
https://github.com/Irtaza2009/Hackamon
and I think the only reason I was able to get good results was because I had a limited 5-colour palette, which helped my indecisiveness. And referencing other pixel art also helped.
To these fine tips I would add: ‘test on as many devices as you are reasonably able’. Something can look fine on your laptop but lousy on the platform for which you are aiming to disseminate.
> "[...] I would add: ‘test on as many devices as you are reasonably able’."
Testing on a reasonable amount of different screens (and software-based filters etc.) is excellent advice for too many people forget this. Of course that's also always a money, time or motivation (goal) question...
This also applies to webdev. I develop a lot with the chrome devtools but once stuff is in mobile it doesn't quite work out due to people using different browsers. The browser bar sometimes being on top or on the bottom hiding controls... I started to just center stuff in mobile ignoring like 20% of space in top and the bottom.
Good advice. I draw pixel art for an image logic puzzle game [1] and these resonate, especially 2. (Negotiate) and 5. (Constraints).
Another thing that helped me was to experiment with different canvas sizes and styles. I was surprised how changing these affects my process, speed and results. Then again, this can be difficult in an ongoing project.
These are just incredibly basic, and oft repeated, pixel art 101 guidelines. And, quite frankly, some of those tips are what I consider bad advice (e. g. a pixel artist has to deal with color theory as much as a character artist or animator has to deal with anatomy; a good understanding of color theory is also necessary to nurture good taste in the first place... so the quicker one gets into that, the better).
Also, just like in coding: Constraints don't hide your flaws (per se); you fuck up, people will (let you) know. And pieces in constrained environments can be much, much harder to pull off.
I had hoped for something closer to the intersection of pixel art and graphics programming. Well, maybe in the future.
> a good understanding of color theory is also necessary.
Agreed. I would also speak out again the uninformed use of pre-configured color combinations. As someone who teaches art/design these are the bane of my life… students use them as a replacement for color theory. A designer should at least know how to parse a color into its hue, saturation and lightness components. Most everything else should follow naturally.
I'm a programmer who started doing pixel art for a personal project in 2022 and this is solid advice. I didn't really think about it too hard but I do find myself negotiating with the canvas to get something to look right when it's just a few pixels off lol
Well timed. I've been going through this process as a non-artist forced to churn out some tiles for a game I'm building [1].
I started off simply cribbing all the tiles from Ultima IV for the Apple II, then gradually adding some rudimentary new tiles as the need arose. Starting with a pixel "rock" and "stick", changing the clothes on existing characters, then eventually gaining a bit of confidence and launching off on more complicated things. Eventually coming back and redoing all the "borrowed" tiles, and launching off into new, more detailed, characters and items.
"Constraints hide your flaws" got me a long way. I've relaxed those constraints a bit as I got better at shading, so it's easy to tell which tiles were drawn at what point in my "career"
[1] https://valtima4.com/, the Survival Crafting RPG you would have played on you Apple II in the '80s. It's essentially Valheim crammed into Ultima IV's interface.
Single player works up through the first couple bosses, but it's not really ready to ship into early access yet.
After classical art training, I thought pixel art would be fast and easy -- the low resolution would disguise any mistakes.
Quite the opposite. The fewer pixels, the more each one has to be perfectly in place. Honestly should've been obvious in hindsight. If I have any games left in me after my current one's finished, I'll just use as high a resolution as I'm comfortable with.
Unless the sprites are truly tiny, like 16x16 with 2 or 3 frame animations, I don't know if pixel art makes a good shortcut to an aesthetically appealing game. Then again, it might be easier than six years of every day practice.
More than a dozen artists I've talked to told me pixel art is entirely it's own discipline - they're no more comfortable approaching it than a layman would.
The traditional workflow of creating a rough sketch on paper or tablet then progressively refining it just entirely doesn't apply.
If you want to see someone who has truly done wonders with pixel art - the game Look Outside has so much incredible (and disturbing) pixel art.
> Programmers are known to not have a strong suit for art related disciplines
Full stop. There are quite a few coders with artistic talents. And even if some specific individual does not have such talent, they are allowed to have their own taste - we do not need to train ourselves to mimic other people's preferences.
Just because they are "[generally] known" for not having artistic skills doesn't mean there can't be a few exceptions.
Besides, they could be known for this and it could be a misconception! The sentence is still true.
Finally, "full stop" is what you say when something isn't up for debate. It's like saying "Apple makes better hardware, period." Like the conversation ends there. It doesn't mean you stop reading.
Have you ever heard the famous "he did not have enough imagination to become a mathematician" quote? There is a reason it is famous and it could be very much projected on programming. Programming requires be creative.
So I don't know where did the "generally known" comes from. In my 20 years experience, I knew hundreds of programmers and probably majority of them were extremely artistic. Writing games as a hobby, drawing miniatures, some were writing books, music bands...
> Finally, "full stop" is what you say when something isn't up for debate.
Is it the only way you can say "full stop"? Can't you just say it to yourself in the way of "full stop, this shows ME this is based on wrong premise, and I don't need to waste time on keep reading it"
This debate strikes me as misguided. It's just basically "someone who's really good at one thing is unlikely to be really good at a second thing".
Well yeah, there are only so many hours you can put towards a thing. It's not a statement about programmers or artists, it's just about how effort works.
yeah, it's just that programmers tend to have self images as ultimate polymaths, and such a person can't have poor taste in art, therefore...
Why is it generally known? It's a completely anecdotal statement, that the author should have just avoided. General statements like that are hard or impossible to prove and insensitive to those it does do wrong.
Yes, I agree. It comes off as condescending. I guess he is trying to peddle pixel art assets, so gatekeeping is beneficial to his future sales.
Gotta agree, I used to draw portraits before I started programming a few years ago... For reference, my last ever portrait: https://imgur.com/a/sEQiLu4
I also know plenty of programmers who are great musicians. Programming itself is creative work... Completely lost interest in art due to AI though.
I would wager that's how it goes for most people that are both good artists and good programmers -- they were artists first, then learned to program. It takes a lot longer to become a reasonably good artist than it does to become a reasonably good programmer. I suspect that might be why the article opens the way it does.
Good advice! I did pixel art for a personal project: https://github.com/Irtaza2009/Hackamon and I think the only reason I was able to get good results was because I had a limited 5-colour palette, which helped my indecisiveness. And referencing other pixel art also helped.
I don't think the author's two samples look good.
The samurai one looks pretty good to me. The Kirby and Mario ones are… well they’re awfully derivative, natch.
To these fine tips I would add: ‘test on as many devices as you are reasonably able’. Something can look fine on your laptop but lousy on the platform for which you are aiming to disseminate.
> "[...] I would add: ‘test on as many devices as you are reasonably able’."
Testing on a reasonable amount of different screens (and software-based filters etc.) is excellent advice for too many people forget this. Of course that's also always a money, time or motivation (goal) question...
> and software-based filters etc.
...and different screen brightness levels
This also applies to webdev. I develop a lot with the chrome devtools but once stuff is in mobile it doesn't quite work out due to people using different browsers. The browser bar sometimes being on top or on the bottom hiding controls... I started to just center stuff in mobile ignoring like 20% of space in top and the bottom.
Good advice. I draw pixel art for an image logic puzzle game [1] and these resonate, especially 2. (Negotiate) and 5. (Constraints).
Another thing that helped me was to experiment with different canvas sizes and styles. I was surprised how changing these affects my process, speed and results. Then again, this can be difficult in an ongoing project.
[1]: https://apps.apple.com/app/nonoverse-nonogram-puzzles/id6748...
These are just incredibly basic, and oft repeated, pixel art 101 guidelines. And, quite frankly, some of those tips are what I consider bad advice (e. g. a pixel artist has to deal with color theory as much as a character artist or animator has to deal with anatomy; a good understanding of color theory is also necessary to nurture good taste in the first place... so the quicker one gets into that, the better).
Also, just like in coding: Constraints don't hide your flaws (per se); you fuck up, people will (let you) know. And pieces in constrained environments can be much, much harder to pull off.
I had hoped for something closer to the intersection of pixel art and graphics programming. Well, maybe in the future.
> a good understanding of color theory is also necessary.
Agreed. I would also speak out again the uninformed use of pre-configured color combinations. As someone who teaches art/design these are the bane of my life… students use them as a replacement for color theory. A designer should at least know how to parse a color into its hue, saturation and lightness components. Most everything else should follow naturally.
It's for an uninformed audience so it's not like it's supposed to be some deep insights
They’re your pixels for your project, not some conformation challenge.
I'm a programmer who started doing pixel art for a personal project in 2022 and this is solid advice. I didn't really think about it too hard but I do find myself negotiating with the canvas to get something to look right when it's just a few pixels off lol