How does one go about pixeling something like THIS?

[gamingjustin]

I stumbled upon a site called gfxzone.org which, from my understanding, serves as a database for art developed on Amiga computers. My question is how can one go about making something of similar quality? The color restrictions (256) and techniques used (lots of dithering) and resolution (640 x 512) dictate pixel art-- I guess this could technically be made in MS Paint. However, the scale, the blending of colors and the sheer amount of TIME this would take in a regular pixel program dictate otherwise, like a 256-color photoshop with dithering instead of smooth high-resolution blending.

Regardless, it's still impressive. I'm wondering how something like this was made, and how it could be made with modern software that could be found on a PC or Mac.

Thanks.

[tocky]

That looks like an indexed painting, to me, using dither brushes. A lot of 90's paint apps were geared towards stuff like this, sort of toolheavy. Not that I'm an expert, or anything, but 256 colours seems like more than you'd use if you were straight up pixelling something that's mostly monochrome like this. It's still impressive, but it's more like a progenitor to the sort of painting people do in photoshop nowadays than actual pixel art. I think.

[Helm]

gamingjustin: this is painted with extensive uses of modes in a pixel art program that supports such, as Promotion, Deluxe Paint, Personal Paint, gfx32 and so on. There is a lighten-darken mode where every click is interpreted by laying down the next darker color in your color ramp, and there's a dither mode and there's a soften mode... think of Photoshop, only in indexed colors.

It is also a copy of some real world illustration.

[gamingjustin]

Interesting, thank you for the succinct explanations! My curiosity is now satiated. So, as I suspected, this is closer to a digital painting rather than actual pixel art.