My Pixel Art Notes: From Beginner to Intermediate
I recently read Juniper Dev's pixel art guide and put together a set of notes covering everything from choosing software to advanced coloring, to share with anyone else who wants to get started.
For software, I recommend Aseprite: the interface is friendly, and its animation and tileset features are designed with game development in mind. If you don't want to pay, the open-source LibreSprite or the browser-based Piskel are good free alternatives. For colors, I didn't obsess over color theory at first and just used ready-made palettes from Lospec, then studied it gradually as I drew more. Prepare at least three colors for each material — a base color, a shadow, and a highlight — and you can already create a basic sense of volume.
When drawing lines, remember to remove stray pixels; turning on Pixel Perfect in Aseprite makes things much cleaner. For curves, keep the pixel segment lengths symmetrical (e.g. 1-2-3-2-1) and your lines will flow much better. When coloring, use neighboring hues on the color wheel for shadows or highlights to make the image more vibrant; also avoid "pillow shading" by deciding on the light source direction first and lighting everything consistently. Dithering and anti-aliasing are two very handy little techniques: one creates a sense of gradual transition, the other smooths out edges.
Outlines don't have to be pure black — try a darker version of the object's own color. Finally, some advice for developers: don't pile on too many colors, since more than three for a single material easily gets messy; zoom out to preview often to make sure everything still reads clearly at small size. Most importantly, enjoy the process — that matters far more than agonizing over a "perfect final piece."
Source: 32comic
For software, I recommend Aseprite: the interface is friendly, and its animation and tileset features are designed with game development in mind. If you don't want to pay, the open-source LibreSprite or the browser-based Piskel are good free alternatives. For colors, I didn't obsess over color theory at first and just used ready-made palettes from Lospec, then studied it gradually as I drew more. Prepare at least three colors for each material — a base color, a shadow, and a highlight — and you can already create a basic sense of volume.
When drawing lines, remember to remove stray pixels; turning on Pixel Perfect in Aseprite makes things much cleaner. For curves, keep the pixel segment lengths symmetrical (e.g. 1-2-3-2-1) and your lines will flow much better. When coloring, use neighboring hues on the color wheel for shadows or highlights to make the image more vibrant; also avoid "pillow shading" by deciding on the light source direction first and lighting everything consistently. Dithering and anti-aliasing are two very handy little techniques: one creates a sense of gradual transition, the other smooths out edges.
Outlines don't have to be pure black — try a darker version of the object's own color. Finally, some advice for developers: don't pile on too many colors, since more than three for a single material easily gets messy; zoom out to preview often to make sure everything still reads clearly at small size. Most importantly, enjoy the process — that matters far more than agonizing over a "perfect final piece."
Source: 32comic
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