So my brother and I have been working on a personal game project again for the last two months and while we're progressing nicely, I figured I should get a few opinions from you guys and gals as I'm not always entirely happy. For now I'm just posting some of the character animations and will leave you guessing as to what the game's actually about. Background's all just placeholders for now and won't be exclusively pixel art, so I'll leave that out for the time being as well.

I'll be glad to answer any questions if you don't know what to make of them Here's a first few, I'll keep them coming as I go along finishing them up






So long,

Hey fellow friends of the picture elements (be they blocky or not),

as you hopefully have noticed, the forum skin got its long overdue overhaul (has it really been 4 years?). I'll leave this announcement up for a week as a place to post about any bugs or quirks you might stumble upon, as well as general feedback and critique.

Enjoy,

your Pixelation team!

The focus of these boards clearly has been on the practice we very specifically defined and know as Pixel Art since they were founded back in 2002, with strong roots in low-end graphics of the days of lore. However, as the techniques involved in Pixel Art could witness a modest renaissance with the emergence of more and more capable hand-held systems which put Pixelation in the fortunate position to offer the expertise of its members to artists seeking to work professionally too, the development of these devices has long surpassed the necessity of Pixel Art. Color-depth and resolution have significantly improved, as have capabilities in terms of gimmickery that can be applied. And with the progress technology made, so did the artists involved in this branch. It only suggests itself to widen our scope of interest to new techniques that still remain within the same vein as Pixel Art, and possibly even have emerged from it.

So what to post in this section?
Anything goes that purposefully was created for low resolutions and tries to make best use of its given restrictions. Low-poly is just as welcome as skillfully reduced or pre-rendered graphics, as well as anything you might find on hand-helds from GUIs to gfx. Show us how you can make best use of whatever be your equipment of choice to cater for those low-spec devices. Tell us your tricks to ensure readability at lower resolutions while adequately tapping the true potential of the respective system, or how to use state-of-the-art software like 3DSmax, Photoshop or After Effects purposefully.

This is a test-run of the new section to see if it proves to be a legitimate extension to the old forums.

Have fun! Show off what you've learned!

EDIT: Feel free to post questions and make suggestions for this section HERE!
I will try to modify this introduction accordingly if there is anything unclear.

Update: Michi didn't yet have the possibility to look at it, but I want to thank you all who participated.  <3



This is Michi, my brother. It's his birthday on February 18th, and he's really excited about it. But behold, he doesn't have a fitting outfit for the occasion! Please, help me to do something about it!

Thinking about what I could get my brother for his birthday, I figured why not create a challenge for him. Eventually I'd like to present him with the whole bundle of whatever you can come up with on the 18th. If you feel like participating just keep in mind to not necessarily be too set on typical birthday related things, anything goes, and feel free to deviate from the template or to modify the canvas.

Here's a brand new tuxedo for him, just to set the ball rolling:



To conclude:

• Make an outfit for Michi!
• No restrictions other than using the template in some way. It's Pixel Art though ;)
• Have fun!

Small update on the rules. See below



Hello fellow pixelationers!

Now this is no new idea and isn't so much of a challenge, but more of a warming up activity to go along with our new looks and old name. The deal is as simple as that, pick a piece of an old Master and reinterpret it in Pixel Art. There aren't many restrictions on this one, stay below 160x160 pixels and 32 colors. Try to not copy it, but give it a new twist, make use of the whole new context and palette Pixel Art offers, go wild. All your base are belong to Mona Lisa or let Dante and Virgil canoodle in isometric Hell or maybe they just want to take it out Street Fighter style.


Here's a nice example piece by Nevanda (not made within the restrictions)
The last Supper, Tactics Ogre style





Recreate an old master painting
max. size: 160x160 pixels
max. colors: 32

Additional rule:
You can also stick to known system restrictions (ie. c64, zx spectrum, etc.) instead of the 160x160 32 color limit.

Have fun!