Initially made for my own Zero Escape 3DS theme, thoses Pixel art chibi are displayed in the style of the game they come from. If you want to use them in some of your project, message me and I’ll be happy to respond! If you’re interested as “bonus”, like Zero Sr. Sprite, the two clock and the 3DS Theme, click here.
Could I ask which program you use for your pixel art? Just picking up using graphics gale but am not happy with the palette settings. Also how do you choose the canvas size you work with and the appropriate scale for objects and characters?
Sometimes I’ll use Photoshop for its better animation tools. Although some GIFs are easier to edit using GIMP’s more raw system (it uses layers for animation frames).
Choosing canvas size for me has evolved over time. TL;DR is that it is always based on the context (how the work is going to be used/displayed and your personal quirks). Examples:
Physical print size
Tribute is 660x900, because that was a round number that fit nicely on the magazine cover for which it was made. (Nicely = I imagined how big I wanted the physical pixels to be.)
For the scale I looked at my inspirations at the time (eBoy, Army of Trolls, PixelFreak) and simply chose something similar. I set people height to 24px and created a composition of rooms, hallways and shafts that would look nice assuming that 25 pixels ≈ 2 meters.
As you can see I made a reference box for the size of a human (to the right of the doors), which I moved around the scene and pixel all objects relative to.
Traditional display resolutions
You will often find pixel art works done at 320x240px size since that was the screen size of many DOS and Amiga games. It’s nostalgia.
In my case, being obsessed with the British home computer ZX Spectrum, it’s 256x192 pixels.
At one point I wanted to make a ZX-styled scene from the movie Speed Racer. To match its widescreen aspect I simply put two ZX Spectrum screens together for the 512x192 final image (8:3 ratio).
I liked the super-wide proportions a lot so I made Pixel China Mountains the same. It all goes back to liking the ZX Spectrum.
Desired display size
If you want pixel-perfect images on Tumblr, you have to size them to the exact width of the dashboard (500px before October 30, 2014, 540px today).
To avoid cropping or image scaling I started doing pieces at 250px size to fit perfectly on the then 500px-wide feed at x2 scale.
After Tumblr’s change to 540px, I started doing 270px wide pieces. :) It’s a nice number for pixel art. Depending on how big you want the pixels to be you can set the canvas width to:
270px (540/2)
180px (540/3)
135px (540/4)
108px (540/5)
90px (540/6)
Additionally, the biggest size you can display on the dash is vertical (portrait orientation) at 2:3 ratio, so these days my final display target would be 540x810px (canvas at 270x405px). I know at least mazeon also sets things up this way (he usually goes for 300% magnification on a 180x270px canvas).
For complete reference, current pixel perfect sizes are:
Tumblr: 540x810.
Twitter: 506x1195 for the main feed. Only the middle 253px will be shown before user clicks on it.
Facebook: 470x470. However, make it just one pixel higher and Facebook will scale the height down to 394px (so all images > 470px will display at 394px high).
3. Scale
Scale controls the tradeoff between the smallest items you can represent and the size of the scene you’re trying to show (given a fixed canvas size).
The smaller you go, the more abstraction you need to use, but a larger scene will fit into the same canvas. The bigger you go, the more details you can add, but the scene will show less physical space.
For example, I can draw a whole city with people as small as on the left, but I can only draw a part of a room using people on the right given 540px of space.
To directly answer your question, “appropriate scale for objects and characters” will depend on the style, the scene and desired canvas size. So there’s no direct answer, you’ll just have to find something that fulfills all three variables for your illustration.
I'm sure you've been asked this before, but how do you go about spriting? Such as the programs and stuff you use? I'm pretty new to it myself and find myself being too uncomfortable to do it. Do you ever start out by sketching the sprite or do you just go in?
i use photoshop for spriting using the pencil tool. depending on what it is im spriting, ill either sketch before hand and pencil over in a new layer (large sprites), or just work from nothing (stuff like tilesheets and overworld sprites)
the few tips i can give you this, i think:
1) Try not to do this, AND DO THIS INSTEAD:
the thing to differ your lines from pixel art and just general mspaint drawing is how you present your line. if theyre all massively connected like this then it doesnt look crisp, and pretty much is not pixel art, you feel me? it can work sometimes for thickening your outside lines, but only do it to make things stand out and KEEP IT CONSISTENT. heres an enemy i made for an old game project i started a while back and ended up shelving:
ive used the thin lines for details and inner line work, but a thick, consistent line on the outside to make it stand out. when it comes to pixel art, you want all of your lines to be orderly.. which leads me onto another tip i can give you:
2) Try not to do this, AND DO THIS INSTEAD:
this is probably one of the most amateur mistakes that i see a lot when people try to make curves in pixel art, and its really jarring to look at. it goes back to keeping your lines consistent and clean, and having choppy lines in a curve is always really noticeable. sometimes it cant be helped, but when thats the case, try and keep it to a minimum if possible. keep your curves numerically accurate in the pixel count, otherwise you just get noticeable line breaks.
3) Dithering is a good technique for shading, but dont go wild with it
dithering is something i enjoy, but it only truly works well when youre spriting with a limited colour palette. its a technique used for shading, transitioning between two colours. it can also be used to give off the impression of different surfaces, but try not to use it too much in a piece, otherwise youll find your artwork just becoming a spotty mess. its a good thing to use, but use it sparingly. EXAMPLE BETWEEN DITHERING AND NO DITHERING
out of personal preference, i prefer not to dither, or keep it at an all time minimum. i like keeping stuff looking sleek and shiny, and dithering is used to making the complete opposite of that. again, its a good technique to use, but it can be disastrous. heres an example of “good” dithering using a limited colour palette:
see how it starts as one, solid colour, goes into a dither, then falls into another solid colour? this is how it should be used in shading. how it should NOT be used is like this:
YUCK!!!! AWFUL!!!!
SO YEAH. AND NOW FOR THE FINAL AND MOST IMPORTANT RULE:
4) IF YOU WANNA GIVE YOUR PIXEL ART SOME MOVEMENT, PLEASE GOD DONT DO THIS:
this usually happens when its occurred to the sprite artist that the thing they wanted to animate was drawn entirely on one layer and it’s too late to do anything with.. so they resort to magical retracting in-and-out legs. usually youre better off having the sprite static rather than resorting to cop out leg retracting.
if you already decided you want to make a little sprite animation before starting, work in separate layers for each limb. it opens the door for giving your animation a little more realistic movements and also allows more options for movement, for example:
see what i mean? that looks way cooler, right?
ANYWAY, I HOPE THIS WAS AT LEAST SOMEWHAT HELPFUL FOR YOU. PIXEL ART IS A LOT OF FUN AND I ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO GET INTO IT ALWAYS <3. YOU CAN MAKE SOME COOL SHIT AND REALLY PUSH YOURSELF WHEN IT COMES TO WORKING IN A LIMITED SIZED CANVAS AND COLOUR PALETTE.
