So a person wrote an article with a super-clickbaity title.
http://www.dinofarmgames.com/a-pixel-artist-renounces-pixel-art/Ok, so someone is wrong on the internet.
But it rubs me the wrong way.
Here's my half-formed thoughts:
* the author states that "Artists of any era tend to create with the best, most current tools available to them. " This is dogma, and conjecture. This is my biggest disagreement with this article. Artists don't have to conform, and they don't. Technology isn't what limits us, otherwise what the hell is Kandinsky? Why the fuck would Schiele say "to hell with your wildly popular and technically flawless academic crap" and draw dicks and vaginas in ink?
"Good" art, pretty art, show-off art can be made with any technology. But even if the author believes our tools have to move with the times, and therefore pixelart isn't a good tool, I want to remark that *he* isn't using the height of pixelart technology and technique. So his didactic tone is misplaced. His clusters need work, banding needs work, heavy dithering is very distracting to me. In fact I subscribe to Helm's theory that 50% dithering is banding. I'm turning into an ultra-purist, and I still don't mind its use at all. But if you're going to knock a tool, at least do it from a place of knowing it inside and out. I don't know pixelart inside and out yet, and even if I did, and had "matured past pixelart" (what an elitist stance by the way), I wouldn't attack it. As I'm not attacking alpha, mixed resolutions, banding, single pixel noise, etc, in people who want to use them. I don't like them myself, but I'm secure enough in my sexuality, sorry, I mean my love of pixels, to not care what people think.
I think what the author craves, and take it with a grain of salt because that's my interpretation of intention, is to make high rez illustration, and therefore is disappointed by the fact that his (beautiful) illustration is not well-received due to the pixels showing. Well guess what, if that's what you want, then you don't want to make pixelart. So I think it's disingenuous to use the defense "I want to make pixelart but I'm not getting through to the ungrateful and artistically illiterate audience". Because you don't want to make pixelart, and are blaming others for it. Nobody is forcing you to. If you think you should spoon-feed people what they're used to, do it. Myself, I'm an illustrator, NOT an artist by any standards, therefore I'm very well-attuned to what people (and magazines, and advertising agencies) like. I do it, and I get paid. When I make pixelart, I do it because *I* like it, and don't blame anyone else, because nobody's forcing me to. No, not even the recent success of hyperlight drifter and all that stuff.
It reminds me of DC in the 90ies. Marvel was always outselling DC, so DC tried to copy Marvel's comic book covers. More color? Done. More speech bubbles? Done. Marvel, amusingly, changed the rules in direct response. They made covers with no speech bubbles at all, covers entirely in black and white, and whole comic books with no words in them. Marvel always managed to outsell DC, but it wasn't because of a recipe for success, it wasn't about using the latest in high-rez technology. It was about taking risks, and having heart. Also less misogyny, my god DC is, as a rule, terrible, why do I still read on? But I digress
* "Speak in a language people can understand so that they can actually see what makes your work great without a tax."
This sounds like "people don't appreciate my pixelart". Ok, why should they? And are you creating primarily "for the people"? If so good for you. Why generalize for all visual artists though?
Secondly, pixelart is absolute and eternal in the information it conveys, we all know it here. High def art, unless it's pure vectors (which are super beautiful as well) is always going to be imprecise, a never ending quest for perfection. But that's fine too. And the middle ground is fine too; older "high-res" games like World of Goo that know they can't compete with actual HD, so they embrace the limitation and deliver a mushy, dirty, blurry world, with film grain on top, that is VERY endearing. And actual super-high-rez games look pretty too. People find things to make anything look good.
* complains about android not displaying pixelart correctly. Idk, it always has for me. I don't know what their tools are. Construct 2 works fine. But it sure isn't a reason to "denounce pixelart". If you want to make a pixelart game, you're gonna make it. If you feel you're coerced into making a pixelart game, because other pixelart games have seen success, then you're not honest with yourself I guess.
* the author's style is pretty much demoscene-aspiring in my opinion, trying to hide the pixel grid instead of embracing it. I'm fine with it, I like the effort a lot. Still, that's not "all pixelart". It's in the weird and super-time consuming area of pixelart that we all know and love, huge, without a lot attention to pixel clusters, and dither-heavy.
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