PIXEL ART Tips for NON-ARTIST Beginners

so let's say you've been wanting to create your own game for a while now you know how to code you've watched tutorials on how to use your game engine of choice and now you've actually found a motivation to start your own project then you find yourself with this big scary truth you have no idea how to draw you're not an artist and you don't even know where to start I've been there too I'm an engineer and I don't see myself as an artist at all however I believe that drawing just like any other skills can be learned by anyone so today I'd like to share with you a couple of tips on how to approach pixel art from a non artists perspective the first step is that pixel art is more about sculpting than it is about drawing whenever you try to draw anything on paper he would probably start by defining the final shape of the object you try to represent when doing pixel art however you can just start with a big chunk of pixels then sculpt your way through it so just start with the closest shape you can assimilate your object to then erase the pixel round to obtain the final result for example if you were to do an apple you could start with a simple circular shape then sculpt it to make it look like an apple my second tip is that 16 by 16 pixels is all you need when a first serve pixel art I had no idea how many pixels I would actually need to draw whatever I wanted to draw I would just create a new 100 by 100 pixel file in a sprite and certainly messing around don't do that pixel art is about making a lot with very little and I believe it's important to get used to it from the beginning just think in terms of single 16 by 16 blocks 1 vlog 256 pixels only one specific object you can draw items styles for a platformer game even your character within one single 16 by 16 block you are 100% going to feel like you need a little more space with all been there but just stick with your 16 by 16 block and make the most out of it take for example from the games last her character sprite is actually made of around 120 pixels which is about half the max amount of pixels you have in a 16 by 16 block my third tip is to only draw what's necessary one of the obvious limitations would only work in with 16 by 16 pixels is that you can draw every single detail of the object you're representing the good news is that there is no need to have all those details in the first place if used efficiently those 256 pixels are more than enough to deliver the idea of the object you're trying to draw your brain will then automatically add the details without you having to actually draw them just focus on what's absolutely necessary to understand what the object you're drawing is let's take a look at Madeline again if you look closely to her character design you realize that she has no eyes no fingers no shoes the focus has been put mainly on her hair because it plays a major role in the gameplay the rest is just not necessary [Music] my first tip is that big lard makes more sense one zoomed out when I first started doing pixel art I always found them a bunch of pixels made no sense and that he looked very ugly and blocky I particularly dislike the harsh 90-degree angles when I tried to make sense out of it I thought that I had to add more pixels maybe I had to add more details and more colors I tried to smoothen those angles the truth is when you work at the pixel level you're looking at a highly zoomed version of the final result when zooming out your brain is going to smoothen the arrows and blend the colors together that's why it's important to look at the zoomed out version of what you're drawing while you're drawing you can do that easily nice bright or just by zooming out while drawing my fifth tip is to learn the basics of color theory there's a lot that can be learned about art no different techniques design composition especially coming from an artistic background however since we don't have all the time of the world it's important to select a couple of topics that are worth learning more about the basics of color theory are one of those things just spend some time learning about hue saturation lighting contrast complementary colors and how they can be used to choose and use colors have a pretty scientific approach when it comes to color instead of spending a lot of time trying to find the perfect color based on my feelings I just pick one then work on its hue saturation and lighting values and move from there to solid colors on top of that it's very important to know that the colors you see on your screen highly depend on the device you're using so a green pixel may look more blueish or yellowish whether it's displayed on a TV a computer or a phone [Music] my set step is to apply the three color rule whenever I'm drawing something I always try to limit myself in terms of the colors that use that's what I applied the three color rule I survey the basic color let's say rent for an apple then starting from this red color I generate two more colors a lighter one and a dr1 the lighter one is made by changing the hue towards orange slightly increasing saturation and increasing lightness the darker one is made by changing the hue towards apart ball slightly decreasing saturation and decreasing lightness these three colors are all I need to draw an apple and add four factions and shadows to it by using the simple rule you can easily create a whole palette but just selecting a few stirring colors and generate the other ones [Music] my seventh tip is symmetry and shape is symmetry in color a general rule that I got from watching a lot of different tutorials is that you want your drawings to have some sort of symmetry then break the symmetry to make the drawing more interesting in the case of pixel art symmetry plays a major role because it makes the object easily recognizable for our brains keep in mind you're trying to put pixels together to deliver an idea more than actually drawing a highly detailed object once you fix the symmetry of the object you can then make it more interesting by using colors in an a symmetric way this way you'll be able to adorn of depth and character to an object all while keeping it easy to recognize my final tip is to fix your drawing time before you start drawing here's the truth the more you practice the better you get at it which this form in terms of time can be translated as the more time you spend rowing something the better the result you'll get the other problem here is that our time and energy resources are limited so you can just keep on drawing an apple forever the solution here is actually pretty easy just fix your drawing time and goal before you even start putting the first pixel on your canvas by limiting yourself in terms of time you'll train yourself not only to draw but to draw fast for example I have a full-time job which means that I can spend 10 plus hours a day only practicing pixel art I usually draw during the weekends in limited sessions so visually 2 hours I tell myself that no matter how good or awful it looks I'll come up with something by applying this rule I've been able to create OD art from a game all while efficiently improving upon my pixel art skills I hope you guys found this video useful if you did please like the video so that YouTube knows that it's a good video and then other people get this randomly recommended to them hopefully now let me know in a comment down below what your project is are you struggling with Pickler - do you get anything useful from this video and you could like to support a little bit what I do please consider subscribing and if you feel like sharing a little bit more your experience you can join the discord server I'm gonna leave the link down below and I hope that you guys have a wonderful wonderful day and I'll see you in my next video [Music]

Channel: Ric

Views: 867,676

Keywords: devlog, gamedevelopment, game dev, indie development, learn how to code, godot engine, 2D platformer, indiegame, pixelart, pixel art, pixelart tips for beginners, how to draw pixel art for games, how to draw concept art for games, video game art, video game artist, game design tutorial, pixel art tutorial, pixel art tips, pixel art tips and tricks, indie games, indie games 2019, metroidvania games, metroidvania switch, how to draw tips, video game sprites, aseprite

Id: p1t0keLufMw

Length: 8min 30sec (510 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 06 2019