What do I mean when I say pixel art? Traditional pixel art is art where every pixel is placed individually. Pixel art is a type of raster graphics. Raster graphics are graphics done with pixels, as opposed to vector graphics. Not all raster graphics are pixel art. It's not pixel art if you shrink down an image to a lower resolution.

Pixel art is raster graphics where every pixel is placed purposely. Every pixel is intended to be perceived by the viewer, and every pixel matters.
Pixel art originates from old video games, and was born from limitations. This means that it is very easy to create, and is excellent for making graphics for video games.

I learned how to do pixel art so I could make sprites for video games. I've been teaching myself how to sprite for three years, and today I'm going to demonstrate some techniques that helped my pixel art.

-Getting Started-

One of the nice things about pixel art is that there is a very low cost of admission. If you want to do watercolor you should expect to spend a lot of money on paint and brushes. If you want to do sculpture you need to shell out for marble. But if you want to make sprites, all you need is a computer and some software. Mouse and tablet both work quite well.

The specific software that you use isn't very important. I use GraphicsGale, which is free and made for pixel art in particular. GIMP and Paint 95 are other tools that are useful and free. Aseprite and Photoshop are good too, but cost money. Photoshop in oarticular is very pricey, but can do pretty much anything you could conceivably need. (I think it's kinda overkill for spritework though)

The particular software doesn't matter too much. There are tools you will need. Almost all graphics software has these:
-The pencil tool is whatever tool you can use to put down 1 pixel at a time. It might be under the "brush" tool.
-The eyedropper tool allows you to pull colors from places on the sprite. Sometimes it's bound to the right click.
-The eraser tool is whatever allows you to change the sprite to transparency or an equivalent color. Some graphics software has a color that you designate as transparent.
-The bucket tool fills large areas with a given color at a time. Don't be afraid to use it. Placing lots of pixels one at a time is only for if you want to torture yourself.


When it comes to actually making the sprite, design should be your first step. It's important to have an idea of what you want the end product to look like.

You should think about what you want your sprite to do. For Psychedelic, during the design process I realized that the main character would have to move their limbs in different ways. I saved time during the start by having the arms and legs on separate layers, allowing me to animate them separately in the game. Otherwise, I would have had to draw each one manually. On the other hand, I accidentally made the legs too short, and the animation for the run cycle was weird. In other words, careful and thorough planning of your art will save you time and overall improve efficiency.

Canvas size in particular is important for spriting. You probably want to keep it small. For reference, the Super Nintendo is 256 x 192, Game Boy Advance is 240 x 160. Even the DS is only 256x192. The larger a sprite is, the more time-consuming it becomes to draw. If you're using a game, you should know what size the game view is going to be and how the game is going to be played.

You can start the drawing process in many ways. Some people draw an outline on paper and then do the sprite in software. You can scan in a finished drawing and then redo it as a sprite, like for Fire Emblem or Advance Wars. Or you can just gt out your software and start drawing. Different people have different processes that work for them. I like to gather and study reference material. Google image search is great for photos, and spriter's resource can be used to get nearly any sprite.

When unsure, I often start with an outline or silhouette. Pixel art is less like traditional drawing, and more like chiselling a statue. Instead of marble, you have pixels.
There are different kinds of outline. You can mix and match. The outline you give your drawing will define some of it's properties.
Selective outline is the most common kind. The outline is coloured by defining a light source. It's nice to make out and looks sexy.
Black Contour is when you have a black outline on the very edge of the sprite. It makes your sprite pop out. If you're having trouble telling your sprite from the background, you can give it a black outline to make it pop more.
Black Inline is when the black outline from black contour goes inside the sprite as well. It's tricky to do well on smaller sprites, since it takes up space. If you want to make your sprites look like anime, give them black inline.
Coloured outline is when different parts of an object have their own outline color. It can help make out different parts of a sprite, and it looks pretty. Usually the outline will be the darkest color of the inner object.
No outline is still an outline. The objects edges make it up. Sprites with no outline can look more realistic, but also can be haard to make out from backgrounds.

One of the limitations of pixel art is that you can't really "curve" your lines normally. Another limitation is that you can't get anything smaller than a pixel.
However, you can create an illusion of rounded edges using anti-aliasing. It can also help get more detail than you would from using pixels normally.
Anti-aliasing is a little different in pixel art than it is in other kinds of digital art. Usually, anti-aliasing is handled by the software. With pixel art, you should really do it manually.

Anti-aliasing is applying midtones to corners. You can do as many midtones as you want, but past 3 is a little crazy. I tend to do 1 or two. As for how many pixels to add to the corners, I usually do less than half.
Anti-aliasing is also useful for changing the line weight, creating the illusion of lines thinner than 1 pixel.
Anti-aliasing is good for when you are converting a drawn image to a sprite. You can use it to preserve the detail of the original image.

The last technique I'm going to cover is dithering. Dithering is how you blend colors in pixel art. To dither, instead of using squares of even color, you instead use checkered patterns. It's hard to do for things that animate, but works great on large areas.

You should use patterns or brushes for dithering when you can. Doing it manually is very very time consuming.

Thanks for coming to my presentation. If you want to know more about pixel art, there are some very good resources that I would recommend:
*Spriter's Resource is a site where people upload and download sprites ripped from video games. I like to make it a hobby to download them, and studying sprites from video games is a great way to improve your art.
*Pixel Logic is a great book on pixel art, and where I learned most of what I know. It costs 15$ and has sections from great pixel artists like Temmie and Syosa.