Pixelation
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Vagrant on February 19, 2015, 03:59:16 am
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Now that I seriously ponder on this... I would love it if I had on my bookshelf a well thought and designed pixel art book. Something that's a pleasure to see and read, even if you are experienced... And hopefully study from.
Three main chapters, the first dealing with what is Pixel art, and basic definitions and tutorials. The second part dealing with advanced techniques, palettes, common restrictions, and so on. And lastly, for the third part, a huge body of work from the most talented around.
Seeing such a book among all the countless digital concept art and classic drawing examples in a book store would no doubt inspire some life to the pixel art scene. (If that is what some of you would like.) And hell, last time I saw, there was an example dealing exclusively with Lego sculpture photography.
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Yeah it'd be cool. Who can do this, though?
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Have a bunch of guest authors from the pixel community, diverse opinion and perspective on topics.
Share pages, make crits and edits to content.
Force Mathias into putting it together, because he's the catalog king.
Publish and sell it.
Give the money to a worthwhile charity so there is no dispute over the value of each contribution.
Just ideas.
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Think that discussion is a completely new topic which would deserve it's own Thread.
Therefore I splitted it from the earlier discussion.
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Sounds great. I'd certainly love to have a book like that. Reminds me of what arne did (http://androidarts.com/pixtut/pixelart.htm).
I think it is a cool idea to have community contributions, not only pixel art but whole articles or (sub)chapters by different people, even if on same topics to get a broader perspective on things.
In the end there'd need to be someone to make the final edits, fix up ambiguities in wording and grammar/spelling errors, bringing it all together in a decent structure.
It would also be interesting if there's a chapter dedicated to ingame art specifically, sort of art post-mortems on some projects, to see the development process of sprites and tilesets.
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Guys how can you not be aware that this is currently being made? (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pixel-logic-a-visual-pixelart-guide)
Plus Michael is a pretty cool dude.
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Nope haven't seen that.
Well that's cool. :y:
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yeah thats nice. No printed version though :(
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Not surprising, though. It costs a shitton of money to print book, and if you print low quantity the prices are just insane... And it's a LOT of work and a fucking mess
But I don't know, maybe when it's done if we ask nicely it'd be possible to get some printed, if you're willing to pay for an overpriced thing...? Hold on, I'll ask him, we never know
EDIT: Asked him and the answer to that completely make sense: the book will feature sprites analysis and stuff from big licensed games, so he can't print them without permission. So... yeah, no.
PDFs are print-ready, though.
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Something like Masters of Anatomy (http://mastersofanatomy.com/)
But with pixels? I'd support that.
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There is also the old classic "Designing Arcade Computer Game Graphics" ( http://www.blendernation.com/2007/01/12/free-book-designing-arcade-computer-game-graphics/ ) by Ari Feldman (published for free in 2001).
It is very technical read though and probably not focusing so much on what "we" think when we think "pixel art book". All the technical information is still relevant(on old systems at least or when trying to emulate the look and feel of old systems which is often what pixel art aims to do these days), especially when the produced art is meant to be used beyond just being a work that stands for itself (e.g. as an asset ready to be in a game).
A "pixel art book" would probably contain step-by-step tutorials about individual pixel art techniques like choosing colors, aa, abstracting shapes, where and how to lay down the individual pixels, dithering/texturing and whatnot and probably also teach some art fundamentals which are relevant for all visual art.
That old book however does not "teach" these things.
Instead it provides a broad range of more high-level knowledge but in a very detailed way which makes it appear low-level again but it is a technical-level, not an art-level focus (except for the color theory and animation parts). Not sure how to describe this better. Read/skim the book and see for yourselves and it might become clearer what I am trying to express here.
The book does not teach steps or skills, it merely provides knowledge but applying the knowledge is mostly left as an exercise for the reader (that is not a bad thing imo for one can not really learn how to do things without trying and seeing for themselves and making their own mistakes instead of repeating someone else's by following a step by step guide).
I think what the book was/is trying to do is close the gap of knowledge between coders and artists but in a way that assumes the reader is primarily an artist and not a coder. It is a very boring read for coders who already know most of this stuff and might be a very dry read for artists who are not that interested in the technical side of things and I dare say it is an impossible read for absolute beginners who have no working knowledge of visual crafting at all.
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Guys how can you not be aware that this is currently being made? (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pixel-logic-a-visual-pixelart-guide)
Plus Michael is a pretty cool dude.
I had no idea Frario was making a guide to pixel art. Should be a good resource, glad it's free too. Will be following that project.
Would still be nice to have a physical book though, the community could make the examples instead of using stuff from copyrighted video games.
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Guys how can you not be aware that this is currently being made? (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pixel-logic-a-visual-pixelart-guide)
Plus Michael is a pretty cool dude.
I had no idea Frario was making a guide to pixel art. Should be a good resource, glad it's free too. Will be following that project.
Would still be nice to have a physical book though, the community could make the examples instead of using stuff from copyrighted video games.
Anyone know who the guest artists are (and also where the intro sound from the video is from? I've heard it quite a bit...)
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There's a list of guest artists right after the stretchgoal image, with links, but here's the linkless quote:
#1 Contributing artists. -- REACHED --
Guest artists who excel at a particular subject will showcase their artwork and help show how they make their pixelart! I'm currently keeping it to about 10 people so I can pay each a hundred dollar for their support <3!
Artists include,
Chickysprout ,Neoriceisgood , Unseven, Blkmkt, Justin_CYR, Ahruon, Paul Veer, Niqle, Shawn Martins, Ellian and others!