I Almost Forgot To Upload D:

the tutorial as promised... if you have doubts with anything, just ask me and I'll do my best to explain... (only I'm in the beach right now, so I'll answer on monday)

Thanks for the nice response on my last tut, Under the cut I'll talk more about the specifics of drawing pixel art, I'm not sure how deep is this because I thought of this tutorial as basic knowledge, but please ask me if you want me to explain anything in more detail.

So, since you already know how things work on the program let's talk about drawing and polishing things in the program... Also, I want to add since I forgot with the last tutorial... I'm not the best at pixel art, not even close, I'm still learning, this is not a definite guide and it won't give you superpowers... or maybe it will if your computer is radioactive and you spend a lot of time reading my guide or something... no guarantees of that though, but if that happens don't blame me if your superpower is lame, ok? First of all, let me explain what pixel art is: Pixel art is a subdivision of digital art, where you have control of your image in the smallest level, pixels. That's why pixel art is normally small, so you can focus on all the picture without leaving things to chance. The main thing that I like about pixel art is that the placement of every single pixel matters...

(you can notice clearly how altering the position of 10 pixels make the lines completely different... this is also true for variations in single pixels, but I wanted it to be obvious)

Since it's a subgenre of digital art it has some "rules" that don't necessarily apply to other sorts of digital art. of course you can break the rules, but then you're not really making pixel art... Actually I think it can be condensed to one rule... 1.- Control EVERYTHING: this doesn't mean you can't use the bezier line tool or the paint bucket, but you shouldn't use any kind of filter or blender tool (burn, dodge, blur, etc) as you can't control the outcome... this doesn't mean you can't use a lot of colors, but give every color a meaning in your picture and keep your palette to a minimum... this doesn't mean you can't freehand your lines, but you have to fix them later so nothing is a program choice and everything is placed RIGHT where you wanted it to be. There are a lot more don'ts than dos with pixel art, but you'll find them as you progress... just look at the master's (I admire Syosa deeply, you may find fool, jalonso and mrmo tarius to be freaking awesome because they are... pixeljoint has a bunch of talented individuals posting and offering advice) and join pixel focused sites if you're interested, their forums are really helpful, I post in pixeljoint, they are cool dudes and have helped me a lot. There are two different approaches when it comes to pixel art (or maybe many more, but I have two):

1.- From specifics to general.

This method is basically start with clean lines, and then fill them out and add detail, much like you'd start any picture I guess...

so I start with a sketch...

(all the sketches I'll be showing are at 200% so you can see better since it's so small)

then I clean the lines,  I normally just clean the same sketch and then change the sketch color to black so I can see better, but you can make a new layer and  work there if it's easier for you... as you can see I made all lines 1px wide fixed all the jagged lines , and basically worked every pixel so in 100% the lines have the correct angles... this was specially tricky in the dress and legs, sometimes just moving one pixel changes the entire meaning of a line...

Then I simply fill the lines with whatever colors I'll be working with... they're not definitive colors but placeholders, but I still try to make them as close to what I want as possible because... well.. I like working the less I can, so if I can pull it off with just one attempt it's great for me... right now this pic has 6 colors

then I put some shade where it belongs, now the pic has 9 colors, I added one darker yellow, one darker orange and a brown... as you noticed I completely ignored the dress colors because I'm stupid and took the screenshot before I worked on it... but I only added one shade of grey for the dress and shaded the lighter part with the darker red.

then I make the lines work in function of the forms, not only as lines by shading them too. I add another darker shade for every color that's touching a line and paint the line also minding the lightning of the picture (using a darker color only for the parts where the shade is, sometimes you can even erase a line if the pic looks better like that, beware of using lights randomly though, that can ruin a picture very quickly...)

then I fix the colors to my liking.. this pic needed some more contrast and better use of saturation in the shadows...

and then I just finish adding detail and put a white border around it because idk... I decided that's how all my animal crossing pixels would look like...

(this is goldie at 100%)

and the other way to work a piece is....

2.- From general to specifics.

With this method I'll start with a very lose sketch, in this step I mainly worry about the gesture and pose, using references is important so it doesn't suck much..

then, I paint with general colors, like, I know the sweater will be greyish and the skin is yellowish, and the hair will be brown and I'll probably recycle that colour in her leggings too... I don't really marry with a palette right now, I just chose general colors and I'll be adding, removing and modifying them as I go...

I also made the pic a little smaller...

And then... I just start detailing... I always start with the face because it's the most important part, I used two shadow tones that will help the yellow look like skin tones...

Never be afraid to move stuff around... after all what you did was just a lose sketch, I worked more on her eyes and changed the shape of the face to match better my reference

The colors evolved a lot since I started and I started refining the shapes and making every pixel count...

I gradually start adding more colors to the palette, first I check the color is not too similar to any of the ones I already have, and then I check if the ones I already have and see if I can make the colors work on other places, normally when you work with greyish colors you can make them work differently when you place them near to other colors... just experiment (or learn color theory, but experimenting is more fun)

this is the palette I had when I first started polishing it...

(all the black slots are fillers, as gale works with limited palettes since the start, you have to manually add colors everytime you want a new shade and if you modify the color, all the areas that are painted with that color will change accordingly... it's super neat to make the colors work together later...)

this is the palette I ended up with, 12 colors + transparency, you may notice I changed the skintones so I could recycle them in the sweater, and the greyish green became less green because that way I used it in more places...

and this is what I ended up with... I flipped it at the end because I liked it better like this...

Hope you find this useful, let me know if something is wrong...

The next tutorial will be about pixel animation I guess, unless you guys have a better idea/don't want to see me post any more tutorials

Alakazam was so OP on the first games, sadly I played on an old emulator that didn’t have cable link so I never had him

Cartoon Pouch Tutorial

I messed up the first time I uploaded this and I lost everything I wrote, here I go again...

First of all, I want to apologize for the number of pics, I know it's a shitton of pics, but bear with me, I don't know how to explain some stuff properly, so I need visual help

Here's the stuff I used, I had a mind slip and wrote Fleece, but it's Felt, also, Iron the fabric you'll use before you use it, I took the pic before I ironed it.

Use something as a reference for the size you want, the biggest thing I'll fit in my pouch is my student ID, so I use it to cut the clothes, I'll use the lines to sew so I leave some margin so it's not super tight.

Be sure to leave all the ugly bits facing outside, we'll cover them with the felt later, also the zipper slider should be facing outside too.

If you don't have a zipper foot (or, like me, don't want to search it) simply place the foot the closest you can to the zipper, when you get close-ish to the slider move the neeedle down so the fabric doesn't move (like in the second pic) and lift the foot, then open the zipper, put the foot down again and finish sewing, for the other side you should start with the zipper open and then close it... In the end it should look like the third pic.

Now sew it to make it a pouch, like you can see, the pretty bits are inside.

Now to give our pouch some personality, this is the sketch I'll use as a reference, notice that I planned where the inner pouch will be to avoid making it too big.

Cut the Felt in the shape you need, to cut the hole for the zipper simply place the pouch you just made where you want it to be, secure it with pins and use a sharpie to mark where the zipper begins and ends, then cut the little rectangle.

Now sew this felt piece to the pouch so we have the back ready, to hide the stitches inside use the lid that you got when you sew the zipper, also, try to make regular stitches with a color similar to the felt.

Now, for the front part, cut all the details you'll need, Bidoof needed a pair of eyes, a nose, a tan muzzle, teeth and a light marking, for the Fin I uploaded a couple of days ago I only needed his face shape and eyes.

Sew the pieces in place using regular stitches, also try to kep the same distance between the edge and the stitches at all times.

Now to sew the back and front together you'll need to do the following, I used white felt with black thread in the example so it looks better... Pass the needle to the other side, now try to enter the needle in the same spot you used first, pass though the loop, it should look like a know when you're closing it, now go a little bit higher and do the same kind of knot, you'll notice how you'll get the thread around and on the edge, rinse and repeat until youre finished, my stitches in the example look gross, but you should try to be as regular as posible for a nice look...

And that's the finished example... if you use this tutorial to make a pouch I appreciate a link back, and I'd love to see the finished product too.

Hope everything is clear, but if you have doubts tell me and I'll do my best to clear them...

Cheers!

Also I think it maaay be a good idea to post stuff I have posted on twitter? I forget that I have way less followers there... I started this bc I went to agdq and I ended up hanging with the dk crew a lot and I was also excited for dkc games

AC pixels, k9 edition (10)

I decided to made this thematic post because I was only missing 8 canines from ACWW... (ok, I'm still missing three doges, but I'm saving them for other posts, but all villagers are done) more variety in species coming up soon-ish

link to the 1st compilation (x) link to the prev post (x)

Animal crossing pixels IV, the revenge of the pixels

MORE!

I've got enough requests for like 3 more sets of pixels since I'm posting them in batches of six... but you're free to suggest you fav neighbour... as I said I'll do them eventually... (also I prefer doing Wild World animals because that's the game I play... but I do exceptions... like Gruff there... he's just too chill)

ALSO! links to the previous pixel AC neighbours (x)(x)(x)

more pixels??? wow

Idk if it's me, but I can clearly see a very distinct difference between the ones I did like 3 months ago and the ones I did today.... also sorry but not sorry for dissappearing once again... I truly feel like shit like 98% of the time

why be cruel when you could be cool? 😎