Pixel Art Tips from a Professional Artist - Tips & Tricks

time has finally come tackle a subject that puts fear into the hearts of all pixel art wait that's not scary modern art pixar can be a challenging skill to pick up especially if you're new to game development or if you find yourself more as just a programmer it's easy to look at all the talented artists around you and feel intimidated to be honest i still fight that feeling to this day but here's the dirty little secret everyone starts out terrible at art wait no no no don't don't show that oh i feel like there's people out there that think that art is some magic mumbo jumbo that only a small group of humans possess but that's not the case it's a skill that takes time and practice and that also has a bunch of objective rules to learn just like programming so i thought i would give what i consider my top tips on how to improve your pixel iron so tip your doors and let's get started tip number one find a tool and stick with it you may have heard me rant about how people jump from game engine to game engine well with art it's the same exact thing find a software you like and stick with it it doesn't matter if you're using a sprite pixel paint.net heck ms paint is fantastic as long as you're using something that feels comfortable that's all that matters because ultimately the software you use is just a tool nothing more it doesn't make the art you do so if you don't like it then don't use it it's as simple as that tip number two be consistent with your style this is one of the biggest problems i see that make your game look very amateur for example if you have a character that has an outline but everything else doesn't but then your background is really detailed and your trees have more shading than your character does what ends up happening is it doesn't feel like it's all the same world instead it looks like three or four different artists making pieces and it ends up feeling really weird so if you're making a game with outline characters make sure that everything in it has an outline or if you're using shading make sure you use the same amount of shades for each object that way one object doesn't only have one highlight but another one has 80. now before you correct me and say that there's a lot of people that mix styles together this is true but the difference is they have a really good understanding and they actually create rules for how to be consistent even though they're matching styles but if you're just learning and you're trying to improve your art just stick with one it's a lot easier that way tip number three steal everything but don't plagiarize now when i say steal you get red flags everyone starts to panic and they think that i mean taking someone's idea and completely copying everything about it and what i'm really trying to say about this is be inspired by people look at other people's designs see what you like and try to create something inspired by it now what i mean don't plagiarize if someone's making a character or a place do not directly copy if it's a winter theme location don't make an exact winter theme location and just change the colors that's not being inspired by something that is just blatantly copying it if you want to know more what i'm trying to say there's a fantastic book called steal like an artist that can explain this a lot better than i can tip number four colors can make or break your art other than being consistent this is one of the most important things you can take away from this video color is extremely important it's the difference between someone buying your game or your piece of art or completely hating it now the nuances of color are so crazy that we could fill a whole entire video about it and maybe in the future we will but for those of you out there that don't want to sit around and talk about color theory the best way to improve your art is by using a color palette hands down there's so many great websites lost spec is a great one or just go on sites like dribble or pinterest tip number five block in first then add detail it's really easy especially when you're working on a bigger piece to focus on just one area and to just keep adding detail in detail but you're honestly doing yourself a disservice because if you're only working on these little pieces at a time your whole design is going to feel very disconnected and just kind of strange so i recommend when you're making your design to block in everything if it's a person don't just make the head make the body the legs arms block it in make it rough i like to make blobs blobs are beautiful and then equally start adding detail everywhere because then it'll feel consistent and beautiful and you'll have a shiny beautiful design tip number six practice where it hurts i know a lot of people want to be great at everything when it comes to art and if that's the case you have to do the things that you don't want to do generally this is things like backgrounds and tile sets they're redundant they're repetitive you have to know about perspective it's annoying i get it but if you never practice those areas and you just keep making little characters what happens is you'll have these beautifully designed characters in a really ugly world and to be honest you're going to spend a lot more time looking around at the environment than you are if you're a player so practice those things that are uncomfortable find videos study tile sets the best ways to learn from the masters if you like super nintendo games like chrono trigger study the artwork see what they did and then try to apply it to your work tip number seven less is more i've been there sitting at my desk crafting the most beautiful character ever and then i realized that i have to make the whole game match this character that's a stressful place to put yourself just because you can make a game look hyper realistic and add all the shading and detail doesn't mean you should especially if you're trying to make a game that you want to produce quickly detailed artwork takes a ton of time and if one or two pieces in your game look very detailed and the rest don't it's gonna look bad and people are gonna notice tip number eight don't belittle yourself this is the number one thing that every artist does every artist suffers from and you're not doing yourselves any favor saying that your work sucks doesn't make you humble or cool it just belittles the hard work and effort that you put into it i understand that a lot of this comes out of insecurity and don't get me wrong i've been there but one of my professors once said that if you don't have any faith in your art and you think it sucks then why should anyone else like it now some people struggle with this because they think it's arrogance but arrogance is saying that you're better than someone that's saying hey my artwork is better than yours but really you need to be confident in who you are and what your artwork is inconfidence is saying hey this is me this is the best that i can do and i'm gonna learn i'm gonna get better but i hope you enjoy it art can already be a challenge so why make it any harder by just insulting yourself all the time now this doesn't mean that you don't get better or you just stay at where you're at you realize i want to get better at what i do but i'm proud of the accomplishment that i've done right now so there you go those are my top eight tips when it comes to pixel art now there are hundreds of different things you can also do to improve your art but that would make this video go on forever so if you have any ideas of things that help you as an artist i would love to hear it and leave a comment down below if you enjoyed this video and you like to see more make sure to like and subscribe and hit that bell notification because you get the latest updates on live streams and cool things like that anyway i just want to thank you so much for watching this video and i hope you have a fantastic week and i will see you here next wednesday for another game dev adventure you

Channel: Goodgis

Views: 417,655

Rating: 4.9714022 out of 5

Keywords: goodgis, ohio, godot, devlog, how to create a game, dewdrop dynasty, construct 3, game dev, indie dev, game maker, game programming, game process, how to make, firith, firith studio, game jam, pixel art, pixel art tutorial, pyxel

Id: cdoWiJANr_U

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2021