Discussion

stodor89: Make the sprites as good as you can within a reasonable amount of time. Don't stress too much about it. You can always do a second pass later on. And even if you decide to pay a professional artist, your sprites would still be useful as a vehicle for communicating your vision.

UI_at_80x24: Similar in concept but for different reasons; does anybody know of a way to convert images into a '8bit pixel map'?My wife likes to take images and crochet them into tapestry/blankets/cozies.It seems to me that if we could get a grid overlay onto an image she could then make whatever she wanted. (One color per 'pixel')

drewbug01: There is no shortcut to art, but that’s part of why it is so valuable to society and so rewarding to create.But don’t let that discourage you. If you want to make your own art, keep working at it. You will always get better with time and practice. It takes a long time and even the best artists frequently feel like their work isn’t good enough. But dedication and practice will pay off in time.

jstanley: That fact that something is hard to do is not what makes it valuable.It's hard to dig really big holes in the ground all day at random, but it's not valuable.

maplethorpe: You need to learn how to practice. Anthony Jones has a video called "how to study better", where he walks you through his process. It's directed at concept artists rather than pixel artists but the same principles apply. I'd suggest watching it.

notapenny: Take your time.

nottorp: Can you draw non pixel art? Do you need to learn how to draw pixel art or how to draw in general?

SteveStavros: The hardest part of learning any creative skill is that your taste develops faster than your ability. You can see exactly what's wrong with your work but can't fix it yet. That gap is brutal but it means you're improving even when it doesn't feel like it.

firebot: You just need to practice.Pixel art takes a shit ton of time.

Tade0: I also tried getting into pixel art, thinking "there's a finite number of pixels - surely I can arrive at something visually appealing via trial and error".Nope. Turns out it's a whole field of study and an artform in its own right.If you're making a top-down perspective game, I wholeheartedly recommend Liberated Pixel Cup assets, especially the character generator:https://liberatedpixelcup.github.io/Universal-LPC-Spriteshee...There's a crazy number of confirmation options and you can create all kinds of humanoid characters out of it.

merelysounds: It’s a completely opposite scenario for me, I accidentally shipped a pixel art game.It’s actually a game about nonograms. My first attempts at pixel art were bad but it didn’t matter that much, the focus was elsewhere anyway.With time the art improved; far from perfect but it’s still one of the things I like most about that game.So I guess: practice, room for failure, achievable goals and time.

gyrospike: I'm in the same boat, coming from programming trying to get into pixel art. It's been discouraging how slowly I've improved, but I noticed that I have improved a little looking back at my first attempts. Keep working at it, make sure you enjoy using your tools (Aesprite seems pretty good), and remember to count as progress learning your tools better.

quikoa: You don't have to go at it alone, share your idea(s) and get a pixel artist to join.Think about how much time you invested in to learning programming. If you're not prepared to do the same for art it's better to get someone else to do it. Especially if you don't enjoy it.

nineteen999: Im a 3D artist not a pixel artist but I've had these Saint11 tutorial series bookmarked for a while:https://saint11.art/blog/pixel-art-tutorials/

makerofthings: +1 to these, amazing resource. Really helped me.

bluefirebrand: Do you have recommendations on where to share ideas to find like-minded people?In my experience, finding communities is kinda hard

AndrewStephens: I have been trying for years to get good at 3D modeling with Blender and have also failed. But I didn’t let that stop me using Blender to produce illustrations for my sci-if epic interactive fiction game that ended up being nominated for a minor award for graphics (it didn’t win).Let me introduce you to the last resort of the struggling artist - extreme stylization. Really good pixel art is a very difficult discipline but terrible pixel art can be just as appealing if you push a style you can call your own.Be bold.

toast0: If you're going to crochet the result, I don't think you really want 256 colors. A 16 color pallete is probably acheivable if annoying.Seems like if you print the image, then print a grid on a transparency sheet, you could mark up the sheet with colors until it looks good.Maybe tracing paper (can you print a grid on tracing paper? Do you want to hand mark a grid on tracing paper?)I don't use art tools, but you should be able to do something in software too, layer the grid on top, leave it transparent to the image until you pick a color for each square.