How To Pixel Art In 10 Minutes | Pixel Art Tutorial

welcome dummies I'll be your host for this evening and today we will be doing pixel art for the people who don't know how well first of all what is pixel art pixel art is a digital art form that most people use for video games and those pegboard bead things anyway it's an art style that was heavily used in the early days of video games as they were very limited in their color palettes and their file sizes however nowadays has become its own respected medium that a lot of people actually admire and it is also pretty easy to get into because of the size restriction and how many squares you have to work with so it is definitely a go-to style for non artists so you might be asking yourself where can I actually do pixel art well in my opinion the personal best place to get started with pixel art has to be a spray you can use other tools like Photoshop if you have it or even things like if you're on a budget of free but you should see your software as an investment in making your life easier for the long run so you might as well pick something up that is built for pixel art from the get-go all right let's talk sizing if you want to get into pixel art and have no idea where to begin start with an 8 by 8 or 16 by 16 canvas eventually you will be able to do art in a 32 by 32 or 64 by 64 canvas but for now I would honestly say that 16 by 16 is the best resolution to get used to as you can still get in a lot of detail at this level without the headache of getting in over your head and having too much blank space to work with being on the topic of blank space let's move on to a tip I will give you that you need to really soak in to take your art to the next level you've probably heard this a thousand times but this is a tutorial for dummies so I'm approaching this as if you don't know crap hey guys we are having a brief intermission so just stay tuned for the tips but I need to talk about a few things before we move forward so if you guys have been watching my channel then you prob remember this guy if we can smash a hundred likes by the first week of this video coming out yeah well you guys ended up completely killing that goal and getting a huge number of likes on that video so today I'm here to ask you guys to help me out even more I've been putting an insane amount of effort into this YouTube channel lately and I'm not showing any signs of slowing down but it would mean the world to me if everybody right now went down and liked this video because it's gonna help me get this video out to more people so if you guys can drop 300 likes on this video I'll know that you guys really appreciate the content and I will be dropping even more heat and just some insane videos that I thought would never be possible and lastly before we go to the video I just wanted to say that I am having a Q&A video happening right now so if you want to be a part of that go into the description and the first link should be my discord channel so go into the discord Channel and drop your questions in the Q&A Channel I'm answering two questions per person so if you're watching this when this video comes out I'll be collecting submissions until next Tuesday having the video drop a couple days after that that's all for me so back to the video anyway something that is very valuable to understand about pixel art is that you need to make sure that every pixel in your art serves a purpose what do I mean by this well you have an insanely limited amount of pixels to manipulate on your image make sure to really use each and every one to its fullest potential I'll talk throughout the video on how you can actually put this information into practice but for now just remember that you should have little to no pixels in your drawing that are randomly placed so now that we have a basic understanding of what pixel art is let's talk structure when creating an object you want to start by creating a silhouette of your image first block out what the general shape is for your object then work on adding color details and shading afterwards as far as colors go you have quite a lot of rules and things to follow so I'll keep things brief and stick to the important stuff so usually you will have three to four colors permits here so let's break that down you're always going to have a base color that you use to color an image in then usually you'll have a shadow of this color in a highlight of this color sometimes you find images with two base colors a shadow and highlight but it's usually up to the artist and what they find fits their needs to create shadows you will almost always want to take your base color decrease the value decrease the saturation and shift the hue closer to blue the reason behind the hue shift is to bring out the coolness of the shadows color aka making it blue highlights are a bit more difficult but you should get the hang of it with a little bit of practice for creating lighter colors there are two main ways of approaching this first you can do the complete opposite of what you did to make the shadow take your base color bring the value up increase the saturation and shift the hue closer to yellow or instead of increasing the saturation you can also decrease it you might be wondering when to use each method of creating lighter colors well to keep things simple increase the saturation on your highlights when you are creating a lighter color on a solid object this would be for things like clothes and usually things in nature and decrease the saturation when you're working with reflective surfaces so things like shines on metal glass and even things like skin an alternative to this is going to a website called low spec it is a very handy tool to get started in pixel art and they actually already have hundreds of color palettes that you can easily refer to for your own art if you don't understand colors right away a tip I can give you for adding shading is to focus on one main light source for your image most lighting will usually come from either the top left corner or the top right try to be consistent with this and change the lighting source as your image rotates around to keep the lighting consistent in your piece next let's discuss ordering your image when creating outlines you have three main ways of going about it you've got the no outline where your image has no outline the hard outline where your drawing is outlined in one solid color and you have well the overly complex and very time-consuming outline probably not the best name for it but it is by far the hardest outline to pull off basically you're going to take the colors of your image make them darker and add them as a border for your image it might not sound like a ton of work but when you realize that you have to do this for every single image in your game yeah it can get pretty time-consuming last but certainly not least is probably the most useful advice I have for you today because pixel art has very few squares you can actually use it is very easy to see each and every last pixel another artist has used to make up their own art now when I say this I am NOT saying to just grab someone else's art copy it and move on but here's the thing because you have to manually input each pixel on screen it means that no one really has an upper hand on another person whether you use a five thousand dollar drawing tablet or your trackpad every 4x4 cube will look the exact same look at references when you're drawing to see how other people have solved a challenge you are currently working on eventually yes you will be able to make your own art and have your own style but when you're first starting out look at references see how the best sword was made are the most perfect cardboard box start with good habits rather than spending three years just playing around with your art and being proud that you are 100% self-taught through your own imagination that's honestly complete bullsh and there are way too many resources out there now for you to be thinking like this in today's world analyze other people's art and breakdown each pixel placement study what they did right how they went about creating a smooth curved edge where you should set your lighting how something should be positioned for a more interesting picture also look at what they could have improved on take someone else's drawing and fix it you don't call me a wise guy for nothing learning is a great way to learn obviously but teaching is just as important to really drill in those concepts and make them a part of your brains comprehension well that just about wraps up the basics of pixel art and how you the dummy can get started right away [Music] [Applause] I'm going to be putting some insanely useful material in the description of resources that help me shape my art to where it is today and what I continue to use moving forward on my journey I'm by no means an expert in the fields but because of that I find it easier to relate to beginners and help them start their journey in the next episode on tutorials for dummies we will be taking a look into how you can create games quickly and easily from scratch again obviously no experience is necessary so please make sure to attend the next video make sure to subscribe for more content like this soon thank you for all of your continued support here are some comments from the last video that gave me a laugh so make sure and drop some heat in the comments below to possibly get featured in the next one I appreciate and loved every last one of you watching my content but until next time have a great life and stay safe during this time of crisis [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Reece Geofroy

Views: 296,298

Keywords: Reece, Geofroy, learn, tutorial, tutorials, how, hd, gamedev, indiedev, devlog, pixel art, pixel art tutorial, how to pixel art, how to, pixel art for beginners, indie games, pixe, pixelart, pixel art guide, guide, best, easy, fast, learn pixel art, pixel art in 10 minutes, learn pixel art for games, pixel art for games, pixel art tutorials, guide for pixel art, 10 tips, top 10, tips, tricks, quick, pixel art for dummies, indie dev, game dev, devlog pixel art, 2D, aseprite, piskel, 2d art

Id: v-ibXM3xBjg

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Fri May 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/enigma2728]

I really appreciate the humor, great video!

[u/Neat-Games]

Thanks for helping this dummy!