Disorder in pixels!

[Sabata]

Every day I open my PC I go trough a complete battlefield of pixels that is eventually my pixel art folder…. I have a complete disorder in pixels, where you could find prehistoric works never to be finished…. The problem is that no matter how hard I try to organize it, I cant!!! It just keep growing!

I was wondering if others have this problem… but really… o and I am just bored right now, nothing to do…. Unless finishing my secret Santana present 

[Jericho]

haha i have a folder -full- of random pixel and other art related stuff i've ever never finished, or just copies upon copies of psd save files and wips

[Helm]

I'm even worse. My such folder is the My Documents one I had in fact, to put all the older random pieces of art in a subfolder called 'loose art' because I strained the hard disk whenever I entered My Documents because it tried to catalogue a huge amount of files.

[Jericho]

I'm even worse. My such folder is the My Documents one I had in fact, to put all the older random pieces of art in a subfolder called 'loose art' because I strained the hard disk whenever I entered My Documents because it tried to catalogue a huge amount of files.

my old computer was like that. I'd open my art folder and the poor thing would start making these horrible noises as it tried to generate the hundreds of thumbnails and images i hadnt bothered to sort x_o

[Helm]

what can I say, I just love to see the linear progression by date.

[Skull]

I think I've got three folders in completely different places around my hard drive..

Right now, the best order I have is WIPs on the desktop and completed work, simply in a folder called 'Art'.

[Larwick]

I like putting things in folders or lists or suchlike... i couldn't stand having one folder with all my pixelart in it, there's simply too much stuff and it would be such a pain to find anything.

I have (from what i can remember, since i haven't been able to access my comp in a while) a Pictures folder and then in that along with alot of other folders i have the Graphics folder and then in that along with others i have the Pixel Art folder and then in that i have 'Projects', 'Avatars', 'Collabs/Competitions' ... etc (within them there're sommor folders too).

It's awesome. 
Even so i could go ahead and re-order it somewhat. I'd say it was a mess atm.

[ptoing]

I have a folder called "art" in which I have a folder called "pixel" in which I have lots of folder such as "c64" "finished" and so on in which again I have subfolders again.

Basically I have a subfolder for every big image, because I save lots of versions and it would get very cluttered in one folder if I had all my pixelart in there.

[Feron]

typical german ordering there.

[ptoing]

You like to go for the easy jokes, eh?

[Panda]

Uhm, I have a few folders for pixel art.
I make new ones by seasons. I seem to pixel on batches, I either pixel a lot or nothing, so it works for me.
They are moderately messy (all ordered alphabetically though), but still browsable.

[elise]

My computer is the only part of my life that's organized at all.

I have elise's stuff -> art -> pixel art -> bases, c&c, contests, dolls, emoticons, forothers, games, lineart, palettes & razr (stuff for my phone).

[Sabata]

I should learn organizing more…. On my folder I usually have one outstanding folder whit the name of project I am working on, so all the stuff related to it is on there. But as long as I finish that it becomes the part of the “group”

Times from time I clean up my folder by deleting old things I reaaaaaaly don’t like, and acceptable stuff goes to the folder called old…. Another messy place.

[The B.O.B.]

You guys are crazy. I only have one folder for my art: and it's generically named " Bob's pictures". Inside this folder, you'll find a couple of files(probably about 10-11) having wips, but with file names that make absolutely no sense, like: "sludger.png" or "bettyboopypoop.gif". If I ever finish them, I just save it a part of one file, that contains all my finished pieces, pasted into the page like a puzzle...kinda' like a mosaic, or something. Yeah, I'm not too organized about what's finished or not...so, yeah.

[HMC]

I have a folder organized neatly by category of every funny image that I've downloaded off the internet, but pretty much every image that I've ever made, whether it be art or just some random thing, I just toss in my My Pictures folder.

[Terley]

I have an art folder then; Pixel art 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.. come 2008 I'll start a new folder 

I wouldn't narrow everything into particular types like you elise I just create a new folder each time I start a new piece and save my progress, like I'd save the first as image01, then every so often I'll save it as image02 etc until I end up with a running progression. Dunno why just habit, and im scared of somehow loosing the file, at least I have slightly earlier copies.    Yea I got a lot of unfinished work, I just can't be bothered finishing some of em cus my mind wanders too easily.

So it's pretty organised, you should see my desktop though  full of edits scrap work and random crap. I often end up gathing em into a scrap folder, cus even edit of other peoples work can be worth keeping for learning purposes.

[Rydin]

I have one folder named "art"...in which all my art is saved (pixel or not)...and also in this art folder, is a separate folder for each artist that inspires me (and inside are examples of their work I like), named after the artist.  another folder in my "art" folder, is named "studies", where screenshots from games with techniques/looks I'd like to achieve live...also anatomical things and such are saved here.

I have other folders with pictures in them, but you don't really need to hear about them .

[JJ Naas]

My method is to fill up the desktop until I can't see the desktop image and then do a total cleaning up and throw crap in rubbish bin and place other items in folders with helpful names like "stuff" "whatever" and "blaaah", then later on spend ages locating illustration projects that may be spread in many various folders. When will I learn?

[Helm]

I have a folder organized neatly by category of every funny image that I've downloaded off the internet, but pretty much every image that I've ever made, whether it be art or just some random thing, I just toss in my My Pictures folder.

That's excellent. Go back in the funny image folder and get us a picture you downloaded between may and june in 2005.

[Jad]

I have like a folder.

'Pixels'

and in there there is another folder

'Edits'

And there are like 5 pieces of art in the Pixels folder and like 20-ish edits.

I don't do a lot of art. ):

[Ryan Cordel]

Have a folder in my E: drive named, basicly, 'Sprite Archive' (eevvill.).

Stores all of my works and some of others to study/edit (helpful kind, don't get ideas. =P) and such. Two sub folders include Character Bios and Pixel Art Study, both self explenatory.

[ndchristie]

I have

C:\Documents and Settings\user\Desktop\NATHAN\Partisan   (80 mb)
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Desktop\NATHAN\Random   (6 mb)
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Desktop\NATHAN\Projects    (48 mb)

of course, there are maybe 20 music files and half a dozen psd's in those, too.

[Xion]

I tried to be organized, but that just ended up with me having too many folders with not enough in 'em stuff after I went back to saving in "My Picures/game"
I'll organize them someday...well, not organize so much as prune away the many duplicates and progress-saves.

[Conzeit]

inside "CAMILO/ Ref1" I've got a "pixelation" folder with a bunch of tiny folders for each user whose art I've been interested in.

and then there's random little single pieces from users of whom I've liked only one piece that just get dumped into "pixelation"

The reference from actual published games is far more abundant, from 3d and 2d games, everything from conceptart to screenshots to sprites (in the 2d ones, DUHH) I've somewhat got one folder per genere in "ref1" and "ref2" 'cuz ref1 got too big

And the folder for all the stuff I create is called "Ggale" (guess why =O)
Whenever I work in something I just save it there as default, each file usually has a "filename-history" folder for the old versions, a lot like what Ptoing does.
Then whenever I get into a diferent project I create a new subfolder to ditch all the files and their "history"folder, so that I can have everything separated neatly by the time of their making.

I generally have my organization all sorted out

[Jolly]

I deleted everything in the My Pictures folder after reading this thread. 
I must try to keep organized!

[Ai]

I regard pixel art VS CG to be an unimportant distinction (just a difference of exactingness), so I have both in the same directory (I don't have folders on my computer), I actually haven't done a lot of pixel art this year, though it appears I have consistently finished all but one of the  pixelled pieces I started

Under my Art directory, I have a directory 2007, and will be changing soon over to 2008. In that directory, all picture files are 'unclassified'. I have a gimp plugin that saves the current  image with a name like sketch122507-00.xcf.gz in this 'scratch' area, which I usually use when saving an image for the first time. (the date is meant thusly to be the date of creation rather than the date of revision -- I care more about the date of creation, which is not reliably preserved across OSes/filesystems otherwise.
If they turn out interesting, I rename them to something more descriptive -- like 'crazy-berry.xcf' and later move them into a subdirectory, also usually rerendering them.
Each directory may also have a HISTORY subdirectory., which tracks old revisions of the history of images (depending on whether i use my 'save history step' plugin for some of the images in that directory.)

I also have a XXXXcont directory, in which I place promising WIPs from the previous year. (XXXX being a year number)

Elsewhere, I have refs, which are more or less independent, organized by type of pixelart (portrait, sprite, bg, tiles, ..). And which I more or less don't refer to.-- pretty much only when I'm looking for a technique/variation to render some particular thing.

I write about my art, techniques, HOWTOs, links to references... in my art journal (actually a TiddlyWiki (http://mptw.tiddlyspot.com). I also use my art journal to plan and coordinate my art.

At the end of the year, i:
* Name and classify anything that I can
* Delete clearly insipid or otherwise cringeworthy drawings
* Transfer promising drawings to the next year's XXXXcont directory
* Move the sketches that remain into sketch/ directory  (remembering to move HISTORY entries alongside them)
* Save PNG versions of images where needed, in order to...
* Mention any good images I've been tardy in mentioning in my private art journal.

I've been using this system for about 13 months .