pixeling

From time to time I like to do pixel art -- basically digital art where you are working with your image one pixel (on-screen dot) at a time. Pixel art is still pretty prevalent in some kinds of video games (mostly cell phones and handhelds, these days).

I started way back on our family's Atari 800, with a program called "Koala Paint", which had its own drawing tablet. Later I worked with MS Paint on Windows when we got our IBM PC in 1993. Now I use Photoshop, but the idea is the same.

early stuff

Later, I got better, but first:

These tiles were created after reading this tutorial. The thing on the right is supposed to be red rock.

This bouncing brain was for a challenge at pixelation where you were supposed to create a jumping animation.

challenges, etc.

The pixelation site used to regularly host challenges where lots of site members submit drawings of the same object, or following the same theme. They often have constraints like a maximum image size or number of colors. I managed to submit a few decent things:

For this challenge, we were supposed to shrink and color this line drawing. I managed to keep it to 16 colors.

This was a challenge involving drawing a ruined structure of some kind.

I drew this one day when everyone was doing self-portraits. It's one of my favorite pixel drawings (see this image for the original inspiration).

isometric art

Video games like Sim City 2000 and Ultima VIII often featured "almost-3D" artwork that was drawn in an isometric perspective, like this store:

On the right, you can see the layers that the store is built up from.

When people see this toaster, they ask me where the bread is. I have no clue. The little stripe on the top left is a color palette that people sometimes include in their art so they can grab colors as they draw. I just forgot to delete it.

more recent

I just started doing more pixeling after a hiatus of over a year. My most recent project is Michelangelo's David (reference image shamelessly stolen from Google Image Search):

On the left, you can see the line art that I traced over the reference image with. When you're working so small, it's difficult to choose where to place the lines. Every spot seems like the wrong place. Fortunately, you don't need to keep the outlines around once you color. The image on the right has only 8 colors.

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