The Pixel Wiki

[YellowLime]

The "objective" part seems fine by me. There are techniques unique to pixelart that have a clear reason of being, and concepts that have reached consensus in the pixelart community. Dithering, anti-alising, banding, pillow-shading... (those last two aren't really techniques )

For example, dithering is done to smooth out the transition between two different colors, without resorting to a new, in-between color. That's objective, right?

What about, anti-alising is the use of a lighter color in the edges of a line, to smooth it out and further the impression of it curving? Still objective, isn't it?

The thing is, the purpose is always the same, and what's discussable and maybe changes between artists is the effect it would have on the work as a whole, in different situations... (ex: "don't use dithering on skin")

For the "subjective" part... you could always just steal critiques of high-profile artists without their consent! Then you can go: "stop canonizing yourself, stop canonizing yourself"

[ptoing]

There are not enough objective things like that which you could list in Pixelart to warrant a wiki, I think.

Also, your AA description is too specific: Anti-aliasing is the averaging between pixels to make images appear smoother or fake the appearance of higher resolution.

But yeah, I am not in favour of an official Pixelation pixel wiki. Too much hassle for what it is worth.

[r1k]

Im not very much in favor of a wiki either.  I feel that a number of people read these pixel art specific tutorials, and get the idea that if they could just master these pixeling techniques they can become good pixel artists without learning non-pixel art fundementals first.  The bigger resolution you work at the less important pixel techniques become.  Its only really at the very small scale that clusters and pixel technique takes precedent over general art skills.  At larger sizes, even just a basic understanding of smooth lines, AA, etc, should get you by provided you know general art skills.  And these basic pixel techniques can already be found pretty easily online.

As for specific usage of different techniques from different artists, this might be better learned by studying their actual pixel art, or reading/posting in WIP threads.  That way you see all the things the artist tried before coming to their conclusion, and you can draw your own subjective conclusions as to why one thing worked or didnt work.

That said though, being able to archive particularly helpful discussions or threads in one place may be helpful.

[Helm]

  Its only really at the very small scale that clusters and pixel technique takes precedent over general art skills.

Are you sure? I don't think they ever take precedent. Unless you're talking about 8x8 or something.

[r1k]

maybe taking precedent isnt the best way to describe it.  But I mean just, like traditional drawing skills arent going to help that much when making a 16x16 sprite compared to knowing how to form good pixel clusters, not that you need to chuck general art knowledge out the window at that scale though.

edit: maybe I should say, become as important.  Knowing how to create form and readability through shape, and color are as important.  But at that scale you must know how to acheive it through pixel placement

[cirpons]

maybe taking precedent isnt the best way to describe it.  But I mean just, like traditional drawing skills arent going to help that much when making a 16x16 sprite compared to knowing how to form good pixel clusters, not that you need to chuck general art knowledge out the window at that scale though.

edit: maybe I should say, become as important.  Knowing how to create form and readability through shape, and color are as important.  But at that scale you must know how to acheive it through pixel placement

But... if you knew how to convey shape and color through general art theory, wouldnt making a 16x sprite be basicaly making shapes of different colors with pixels? In other words, isnt a pixel cluster just a shape with certain colour? Just like in traditional media (oil, watercolour etc.) but here we have more control over how the shape will look.

[Helm]

not really, because the whole thing about cluster theory is to discretely choose where you want pixel edges to line up and where you want to alternate them to avoid banding. Banding is not a problem in any other art form, I would expect. It might even look pleasing to have things line up perfectly in natural media under certain conditions, I would wager.

But anyone with good understanding of brush strokes and conveying volumes and shapes with it from traditional media is going to immediately come to pixel art with more than 80% of the work already there to understand the otherwise simple concept of cluster limitations and indexed palette control etc.

[ptoing]

Indeed. I personally think that any good artist, esp. if they are already used to working digitally, can be trained to become a good pixelartist in a very short period of time.

[Arne]

I'd think screen print no, wait, thinking about stencil techniques (like the Obama Hope poster) faces some of the same banding problems which pixel art does. If you're gonna have a contrasting edge between two color fields, might as well try to place it where it makes compositional sense, and/or describes a shadow-light plane change, or perhaps just a seemingly natural change in value/coloration.

I started outlining a tutorial. Not sure if anything will come from it because I already feel myself derailing. Might post it for peer review, or not.

[Helm]

I'd love to read that. Your general art tutorial has been a go-to reference for me for a long time.