Cute Pixle Art on the Computer Cute Easy Pixel Art on the Computer

INTRODUCTION TO PIXEL Fine art

Computer graphics and digital art as we know them today take a root, and that is pixel fine art.

Dorsum in the day, at that place wasn't a 'Pixel Art' style considering every art made on a computer needed to be pixel-past-pixel artwork.

As computers evolved, the capability to render images became more than advanced, enabling digital artists to create without the limitations of old hardware.

Creating art with these limitations in mind is the core of pixel art as an fine art form.

While no longer a necessary approach, forcing yourself to create in the boundaries of an old applied science or set up of techniques can help you every bit an

artist.

Below are some examples of my exploration with pixel art.

In this commodity, I'll highlight some characteristics, bones techniques and guidelines and so you can showtime making your own pixel art.

All the information here can be applied to any 'fashion' and any software. And that'southward the dazzler of this subject.

The technical side of this art form is important, especially if yous want to make an homage of a video game.

But remember that you don't need to force yourself to create a 32×32 pixel size artwork with only 3 colors, if yous don't want to.

It's beneficial to respect the fundamentals and the techniques of erstwhile-school digital artists – but it's not obligatory to work like them.

LEARNING By DOING

For this article, we'll work on an approachable claiming.

I want you to create a 64×64 pixel portrait.

That's information technology!

You tin can draw yourself, make a fanart or invent a character.
The goal is to create an artwork that tin be used used as a social media avatar.

Start with a small (resolution) file size, then the pixel unit is visible. There's no bespeak to making pixel fine art where the pixels aren't evident.

SETTING UP YOUR Canvass

For this article, I'll be using Clip Studio Paint.
While at that place's great dedicated tools for making pixel art, you can employ whatever drawing program to follow along.

• Create a 64×64 pixel certificate (ane);
• Get to View > Grid/Ruler Settings (2);
• Configure equally the following so you can see a grid with every single pixel. You can turn the filigree on/off someday using the Shift+K shortcut. (3);

A good practise for working with pixel art is getting used to drawing zoomed while keeping an middle on the actual-size artwork (4);

To create a secondary view of your current canvass, go to Window > Sheet > New Window and open a new case of the electric current canvas.
Set it to 100% and place in your workspace (5).

CREATING THE PIXEL ART TOOLS

Fourth dimension to introduce a basic concept.

Pixel fine art does not go along with automated anti-aliasing.

Anti-aliasing is a useful algorithm that smooths edges of a shape.
This is made by adding an actress row of pixels closest to the aliased edge.

As you can run into in the instance, the anti-aliased edge (7) has an automatic gradient of pixels to give the shape a smoother contour.

The aliased border (6) is what we're looking for when creating pixel fine art. Later, we can soften the edges by adding anti-aliasing by hand (manually).

A rule-of-thumb when using any software to create pixel art is to disable the anti-aliasing setting in brushes, tools and transformations.

In Clip Studio Paint you have to turn off anti-aliasing in:

• brushes (viii);
• tools like Option, Fill, Text, eg. (9);
• and during any transformation using Edit > Transform (10);

In Clip Studio Paint you already have a pixel art pen. Information technology's called 'Dot Pen' in the Marking category (11).

This is the simplest cartoon brush available. It has a fixed 1-pixel size, anti-aliasing turned off, and no option for stabilization or color mixing.

I advise you follow forth this tutorial using this brush only.
Later in the game, yous can indistinguishable any of your 'common' brushes and employ it for pixel art (as long you lot reduce castor size to lower values and disable anti-aliasing).

DRAWING THE LINEART

Since this will exist a forepart-facing portrait, I'll start the drawing using the Symmetrical Ruler (12);

Place the Symmetrical Ruler on the Canvas and, to brand sure it's on the dead-middle, use the Object tool to select information technology and input values manually (thirteen);

In this example I changed the Center X and Center Y values to 32, which is half of my full canvass size (64 pixels).

At present, select your Dot Pen over again and showtime cartoon.
Since this castor tin can't be resized, information technology's a good idea to zoom in on the canvas you're drawing (15) and use the indistinguishable view as a reference (xiv).

I started my portrait cartoon a initial sketch to notice the construction of the caput (16) and then I started adding details (17).

In that location's no need to utilize a blue colour. I simply prefer it because it helps my encephalon understand that I'chiliad creating a crude for my final drawing.

If you're washed with the sketch yous can proceed with the linework.

Before adding the final lines, permit me evidence you a simple technique for drawing lines and curves in pixel art.

In the instance beneath, the linework (xviii) doesn't look shine because there's a lot of duplicated pixels where information technology should be a single pixel line.

You lot can fix those 'doubles' (it's a term) by removing any adjacent pixels on the curve. In the example (nineteen), I removed all pixels marked in ruddy.

I propose you to render to your sketch and look out for those 'doubles' to clean your linework.

Do non worry if the curves don't feel right. But remove the unwanted pixels.

TIP: if you need to erase a pixel, you can simply switch to the transparent color (I have my shortcut set to X);

In the example below you can see the difference of the initial sketch (twenty) and the cleaned-upwards version (21).

Ready for another technique?

Let'due south get-go fixing the drawing and adjusting some curves.

Seeing the example beneath (22), you tin notice the distribution and spacing of pixels are not post-obit a logical progression. (eg.: 3, 2, ane, iv…)

While on this improved version (23), you lot can run across a ameliorate progression of pixels to create the bend. (eg.: 1, 2, 2, three…)

With that knowledge, I suggest you to endeavour the following exercise before standing on your drawing:

Try to depict some random lines and curves with the 2 concepts you only learned so far: remove the doubles and maintaining the 'pixel progression'.

This volition give you a solid gasp in how to contour shapes in pixel art.

Below is my concluding linework (25).

I did some pocket-size adjustments on the proportions and curves, and removed some unnecessary pixels to brand the confront more readable.

Have some time to compare with the original version (24) and try to notice where I applied the techniques.

COLORING Fourth dimension

The number of colors used on a sprite (term used to describe an object in game development), depends by how much y'all desire to stay shut to a specific limitation of an old technology.

While non necessary, you tin can acquire a lot about pixel art by limiting yourself to a small amount of colors to choose.

For now I propose you start with a simple colour palette. Every bit a starting point, you lot can apply the 56 colors of the palette used past the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) videogame console (26).

The color and tone choices on this palette are not perfect, but it provides a adept starting point.

In the examples below you have the PC-98 computer color palette (27) and a personal one I built in the past (28);

Later you can start edifice your own palette, but always retrieve to keep it tight and simple.

I first past filling my lines with some base colors (flatting).

I'm starting with 5 initial colors, including the black linework to paint this portrait (29).

On this phase, call back to configure your Car Select and Fill tools for the pixel art workflow, disabling Area Scaling and Anti-aliasing (30).

To shade (add shadows) the skin color on the portrait, you lot don't need to merely apply the darker value of a specific color;

I can potentially use any color available every bit long the values read correctly.

Hither'southward a tip – Create a new layer on elevation of your layer stack, fill information technology with black and ready the layer way to Color.

Now you can use this layer to check the value relationship of your colors (32).

In the example below you tin can see how I managed to use the onetime groundwork color (purple) equally the shade color of my brown skin (31). I prefer to go with a blackness background to salvage one color…

Again, I don't need to – but I'd like to exercise these limitations imposed by the NES colour palette.

For the highlights on the skin and glasses (33), I don't needed to introduce whatsoever new colors because, while checking the grayscale values (34),

I noticed the color of the t-shirt could be used for that.

I wanted to add together some manual anti-aliasing to smoothen the border betwixt the lit and shadowed areas of the skin (36).

Using the NES palette just, I could not discover colors that I could use to create this gradient transition.

So here'southward where I abased the 'virtual limitations' in favor of the artwork.

In the case I added two new colours (37), so I can add more than details to the shading.

I can't stress this plenty, but information technology's really of import that you make these decisions while looking the artwork through the real, not zoomed-in, canvas size (35).

Using the ii new actress colors, I increased the rendering on the face adding more book, wrinkles ('crusade I'chiliad getting old) and softening some  shadows on the lit side of the portrait (38).

On the blue jacket, I decided to employ the dithering technique to create the sensation of a gradient without adding colors (40).

By breaking upwards the solid transitions on a checkerboard blueprint I can brand the illusion of an inbetween color (39).

Dithering is an advanced technique and this is but a bones usage for it.

As y'all can see, the consequence creates a textural consequence that tin be a trouble if used on pare or shine surfaces.

I found it advisable to utilise in the jacket (fabricated of material), because I can benefit from the crude texture.

After some tweaking, I managed to fully paint the portrait.

I'm very happy with the last effect because I could fit a lot of details for a 64×64 pixel size artwork with only 7 colors.

ps.: I also had pixels and colors plenty to gear up those weird-looking cartoony optics. X-D

EXPORTING

Last, but not least…
When saving and exporting pixel fine art, utilise the GIF or PNG format.

Avoid using the JPEG format, especially with any level of compression.

This volition destroy all the beloved and care you used to create your pixel fine art.

Look at the examples below: a 99% compressed JPEG (41) may await ok from a altitude, merely it adds some non-wanted colors.

A 80% compressed version (42) will make whatsoever pixel artist bleed. And then please, don't do that. 🙂

When it comes to posting on social media, you take to deal with the automatic-compression of the platform.

For Instagram, you'll accept no option because the system automatically converts and resizes the image to a low-quality jpeg.

On Twitter, you'll have a sharper, almost perfect image if the exported file is 506 pixels broad in PNG format.

That'southward it.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and too hope you managed to create your showtime pixel art portrait.

Below you can detect my minuscule, yet incredible, piece of art. 🙂

If you create yours, please let me know.

– dado

Artist Contour

Hi. I'm Dado (Dadotronic) Almeida and I draw and pigment xc's-videogame-inspired art. As a freelancer artist I create concept and production fine art for games and animation.My indie career is devoted to personal projects like Claws and Tusks (comic) and artwork that I brand for fun or commissions. I also like to teach and share my discoveries about digital art, computer graphics, and mental health for artists.

https://www.dadoalmeida.com/
https://twitter.com/dadotronic
https://www.artstation.com/dadotronic

hammonderybousbaby.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.clipstudio.net/how-to-draw/archives/161082

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