Pixelation

General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Reedyxc on October 10, 2016, 12:02:50 am

Title: What are some good free pixel art courses that will allow me to get better?
Post by: Reedyxc on October 10, 2016, 12:02:50 am
I have always wanted to make a game with pixel art in it.... However, I am not a great artist..... I just want to know if any of you have tried any online pixel art courses for free, that really benefited you...

Thanks ;D
Title: Re: What are some good free pixel art courses that will allow me to get better?
Post by: lachrymose on October 10, 2016, 12:39:27 am
Not really too many pixel related tuts out there..

In the Rules and Resources (http://"http://pixelation.org/index.php?board=9.0") section you'll find the few that are about.

Remember that pixel art draws mostly from traditional art. With the exception of Anti-Aliasing techniques and maybe methods to avoid banding which tend to be issues more related to pixel art, though not always.
Most any art related course whether it is for drawing or painting or digital techniques will help you with pixel art and those types of tutorials are just a google search away.

My advise is to just google "Proko" He covers a lot of different art related fundamentals to help get you started and he is easy to follow.
Regardless of how many tuts you find though practise makes perfect. Make a sprite and post it here for critique.
Title: Re: What are some good free pixel art courses that will allow me to get better?
Post by: Reedyxc on October 10, 2016, 12:41:09 am
Thanks man.... That really helped!  ;D
Title: Re: What are some good free pixel art courses that will allow me to get better?
Post by: Retronator on October 10, 2016, 11:10:19 am
I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I think there's more and more tutorials out there with pixel art's rising popularity, especially on YouTube lately (example (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR3Ra9cf8aV06i2jKmgKvcYVHI86-4K_b)) and not-free on places like Udemy/Coursera.

The classic list from Pixel Prospector/Pixelartus always hits home too:
http://pixelartus.com/post/126601293636/pixel-art-tutorials (http://pixelartus.com/post/126601293636/pixel-art-tutorials)

I'm trying to make one of my own too, but so far have only a lo-fi prototype in google slides:
http://www.retronator.com/gettingstarted (http://www.retronator.com/gettingstarted)

It gets a bit too tough too fast from days 5–7. But this is just a test, kind of feeling the waters with the content. The second version of it will focus specifically on teaching how to make pixel art for games. It'll be the first episode of my game Pixel Art Academy, hopefully available end of this year. I haven't published this yet, but here is a draft of all the free content I made this year during development of the game:
https://medium.com/retronator-magazine/736c8e9bfbaa (https://medium.com/retronator-magazine/736c8e9bfbaa)

It has the Getting Started tutorial mentioned, but also others (1 Week Challenge has lots of good links to tutorials). But this is stuff I wrote, so not really what I know that helped myself (although others say they helped them).

For me personally, from free resources, I took most away from Feng Zhu's Design Cinema (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvNv1kRvuSwLYS2CkHTDS6-zVKSoUYzJO). But that's general for digital painting. For pixel art specific, Glauber Kotaki's run cycle tutorial (http://www.lessmilk.com/tutorial/pixel-art-run-cycle) has given me the most understanding of how to make animations look great. When it comes to understanding art/shading/theory I respect Arne Niklas a lot so his tutorial (http://androidarts.com/pixtut/pixelart.htm) is something I like. And for game tiles, I've really found useful the chapter De-mystifying the Greats (http://gas13.ru/v3/tutorials/sywtbapa_de-mystifying_greats_1.php) in a tutorial by Tsugumo.
Title: Re: What are some good free pixel art courses that will allow me to get better?
Post by: Reedyxc on October 10, 2016, 11:43:52 am
Thank you so much! And good luck on that pixel art book! Maybe, if you don't forget who I am, you can tell me when it's finished...... Again, thanks!