how to improve my skills

[xChapx]

well im not very good at pixel art , and i dont find a good way to practice and i really want to improve so what do you recomend me to do?

[Helm]

Find a good way to practice.

[Lóng]

I have found that besides practicing, which is unfortunately necessary, studying works u like and tackling things u think might not be able to handle can help speed up ones progress tremendously.

[AlexHW]

the technical details to pixel-art can be boring, much like any form of technical skill.. Try and find something else that interests you such as a tv show or an idea or whatever.. and start pixeling it. I remember when i was learning to draw as a child i would pose my action figures and draw them..

[xChapx]

thanks for the advice

[PixelPiledriver]

Here's some exercises.
choose 1.
These have a time limit of 1 week.

Draw 1000 teapots.
Draw 100 pages of sketches of household items from observation (min 4 per page).
Draw 500 cubes from imagination in various perspectives.

the following all go together
Go to a life modeling session, you can find free ones at schools or elsewhere, look on the internet, if not it should be fairly cheap.
Draw 100 complete figures in less than 30 seconds each. Use a silent timer.
Draw 50 complete figures in less than 1 minute each.
Draw 10 complete figures in less than 5 minutes each.
Draw 1 complete figure in less than 1 hour each.

Be creative and have fun.
If you cant finish within the week no big deal.
just get as close as possible.
the next week change it up.
enjoy!

[xChapx]

Here's some exercises.
choose 1.
These have a time limit of 1 week.

Draw 1000 teapots.
Draw 100 pages of sketches of household items from observation (min 4 per page).
Draw 500 cubes from imagination in various perspectives.

the following all go together
Go to a life modeling session, you can find free ones at schools or elsewhere, look on the internet, if not it should be fairly cheap.
Draw 100 complete figures in less than 30 seconds each. Use a silent timer.
Draw 50 complete figures in less than 1 minute each.
Draw 10 complete figures in less than 5 minutes each.
Draw 1 complete figure in less than 1 hour each.

Be creative and have fun.
If you cant finish within the week no big deal.
just get as close as possible.
the next week change it up.
enjoy!

cubes from imagination?
and household items like?
how big do you think i should make the sprites?

i am going to try this , this was the answer i was looking for thanks very much i will practice hard 

[PixelPiledriver]

and household items like?

Anything you can find around the house.
Even things you might find boring to draw.
Get into it and figure out the construction.
It's good to do the same object from multiple perspectives.
Here's some examples from my sketchbook from years ago i was able to dig up:













Couldn't find my other sketchbooks at the moment.
For the 1000 teapots you don't HAVE to use reference, altho it is recommended to start with.
There are different strategies to the teapots if finishing within the time limit is important to you.
You could draw 100 really shitty ones in 10 secs each.
Then take your time on the next 10 and make them nice.
Then do another 100 shitty!
Try realistic, stylized, themed, give them personalities, etc.
There are no rules besides the original guidelines.
Just go for it and see where it takes you.
Make it fun.

cubes from imagination?

Again you can use reference at first.
But then go crazy.
Try different types of perspective.
Make up ideas to keep yourself entertained and make the image entertaining.

how big do you think i should make the sprites?

I realize my examples are on paper, but the same exercises could be done in pixel (im considering doing the teapots just for fun myself, altho ill get no where near 1000!)
I'm going to do a row of 8x8, then a row of 16x16, then 32x32, 64x64, etc, and see how far that gets me.
But its up to you.
Be creative and fill in the blanks.

Also these aren't just random exercises I made up.
I've completed these in the past and found them to be useful.
Something that I should probably do more often.

If you're up to it, post your progress just for fun.

[xChapx]

snip

awesome man i didnt think that you were going to help me like this , thanks i will post my progress (when i make one)

[jams0988]

For the 1000 teapots you don't HAVE to use reference, altho it is recommended to start with.
There are different strategies to the teapots if finishing within the time limit is important to you.
You could draw 100 really shitty ones in 10 secs each.
Then take your time on the next 10 and make them nice.
Then do another 100 shitty!

Artists in general, and 3D modelers especially, seem to love teapots. Why is this? Is there any reason to draw a thousand teapots, instead of a thousand blenders? Or is this just an industry joke/tradition, like "Hello, world!" for programmers?

[TheMonsterAtlas]

Artists in general, and 3D modelers especially, seem to love teapots. Why is this? Is there any reason to draw a thousand teapots, instead of a thousand blenders? Or is this just an industry joke/tradition, like "Hello, world!" for programmers?

Honestly that sounds about right. Another thing to think about is that teapots generally have a lot of curves and are nice with light, so it's more about the complexity of 3D depth without having too much anatomy to work off of.

Plus, everyone has a teapot.

[PixelPiledriver]

Teapots are used for rendering tests because they have many features that interact with light in different ways.
Many different normals are exposed simultaneously.
Here's some screenshots from a 3D engine I wrote.








As you can see the teapot has:
Slow large curves (body)
Fast small curves (spout, handle, lid handle)
Hard edges (top rim, lid, spout hole)
Overlap (handle, spout, lid)
Down facing normals (bottom of body, bottom of spout, bottom of handle, bottom of lid handle)
multiple pieces (body and lid)
Inner shell (spout hole, top)
Self Casting shadow (not shown here, but it is able too unlike a box)
etc

These are good lessons to learn how to render when drawing in 2D, and are a useful collection of features when running tests in 3D.
This lets you more accurately test a shader than using something simple like a cube.


Also a teapot is one of the DirectX default meshes that you can draw with a single function call.
So its one of the first things you'll try when getting your graphics code running.

While it's not exactly a joke, it is funny.

Why is this? Is there any reason to draw a thousand teapots, instead of a thousand blenders?

You can draw blenders if you really want to!
Altho most blenders are see thru, so it adds an extra level of complexity.
It's an exercise, so the purpose isn't to be good at drawing teapots.
The purpose is to get better at drawing, managing time, completing a ridiculous task, being creative within limitations, etc.
While its not the most mind blowing drill, I think it's a good one.
Also keep in mind there aren't any rules.
You can draw a teapot in literally 10 seconds and it still counts.
Usually around 500 or so, people go crazy and start to get really creative.
A 1 week time limit is VERY HARSH so if it doesn't fit into your schedule don't worry about it.
But it's good to have some sort of time limit so that you learn to manage time with a quantity vs quality battle.

[Facet]

Artists in general, and 3D modelers especially, seem to love teapots. Why is this? Is there any reason to draw a thousand teapots, instead of a thousand blenders? Or is this just an industry joke/tradition, like "Hello, world!" for programmers?

Utah teapot yo.

Some of mine from a ways back:




I haven't done any of these kind of exercises in years and really should do, thanks for the inspiration.

[xChapx]

Plus, everyone has a teapot.

i dont have one :c now im looking that looks alike to start drawing only one thing i think i will use  a blender
---------------------------------
nevermind i found one