AuthorTopic: Want advice in how to learn pixeling  (Read 9402 times)

Offline Uhfgood

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Want advice in how to learn pixeling

on: August 15, 2015, 07:34:51 pm
A quick disclaimer:  I want you to know up front I'm NOT asking for how to do something specifically or for specific tutorials.  I can look up various tutorials myself if I want to know how to do something in particular.  I know the best way to improve is to practice and that art fundamentals are probably a requirement.  This being said.

I want to know how I should progress and what I should work on.  Obviously I have my game, but the game is a very narrow slice of learning as it has specific needs.  How do I start, I lack the ability to come up with things on my own, I can usually copy stuff pretty good.  So how should I go about learning pixeling.

Do I start with some basic shapes and then 3d shapes, and so on.  Do I start with copying a photo reference or actual game art.  I see there's a lot of line art in the line art thread, maybe I should start with that.  I don't really know where to begin.

Is there a progression I should follow, or what would you recommend as a progression?  Maybe I start with simple shapes and objects, then go on to filling in line art, and then, take a photo and shrink it down and copy it, and then just copying a photo by eye, and finally just something original.

Maybe I should just do 'pixel-overs' of photos or paintings, and then try looking up game art and copying it, maybe I should do them all.  How would YOU start if you had to start from scratch, what would you work with in progression when learning?

Maybe a step in one progression would be to do every pixel art tutorial out there first and then try some stuff on your own?

Just give me some advice.  I do *NOT* need to learn how to anti-alias properly, or avoid banding and pillow shading, or whatever... I mean I might need to learn all of that, but that's not what I'm asking for in this message.

I would appreciate it if you wouldn't give me an answer like "just start practicing", but what am I to start practicing?

Thanks for your time, I hope this is clear enough.

Offline lachrymose

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Re: Want advice in how to learn pixeling

Reply #1 on: August 15, 2015, 07:42:19 pm

Offline Joe

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Re: Want advice in how to learn pixeling

Reply #2 on: August 15, 2015, 08:09:44 pm
Hi Keith.
I would not recommend copying line art with the intention of learning how to pixel, you'll likely pick up the original artists' flaws.

If I got to start from scratch and wanted to pixel, I would treat this medium with respect. I would mostly draw for the first year, supplementing with value/cluster studies in pixel.
If my artistry improved by the second year I would move onto the study of clusters themselves using restricted palettes.
After all that, then I'd study other artists' work to see their solutions, and gain a larger perspective on what is possible/what doesn't work well.

Since pixel is mostly used for game art, I would recommend studying construction and supplementing with observational drawing so that area is not lacking.

I would never focus on AA or "pillow shading", AA is trivial to pick up and overAA is easily corrected by more experienced eyes. Proper shading is a simple consequence of knowing how to draw, but I can see you know that.

Above all: if you just draw every day, 5 years from now you'll likely be better than you set out to be. The best artists on this forum know how to draw. The ones who struggle, still struggle with drawing.

Offline Uhfgood

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Re: Want advice in how to learn pixeling

Reply #3 on: August 15, 2015, 09:28:45 pm
Are you talking about drawing as in paper and pencil, or do you mean just start pixeling whatever from scratch.  Also I'm not really sure about the cluster studies.  I've read some of those threads but it's not much more than interesting to me.  (That is I didn't know what I was suppose to pick out of the cluster threads, even though it was interesting).

And by "supplementing with value/cluster studies" do you mean read them or do them myself, "study of the clusters themselves using restricted palettes", meaning again I'm supposed to make my own studies or experiements, or what do you mean by "study".

I'm just trying to figure out steps to learn pixeling.

Offline Joe

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Re: Want advice in how to learn pixeling

Reply #4 on: August 15, 2015, 10:25:50 pm
Right, steps to learn pixelling. I'm just talking about a basic progression. Not saying that you have to know what clusters are right now.
I believe drawing should be learned in analog, like pencil or pen. Pixel is a very poor medium to learn how to draw in.

Any study should be done yourself, how can you learn anything without experiencing it firsthand? So yes, at every stage you question, and you practice, and you do your own experiments.

Offline Uhfgood

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Re: Want advice in how to learn pixeling

Reply #5 on: August 16, 2015, 02:55:19 pm
That didn't really tell me what I wanted to know, but thanks for replying with some thoughtful responses Joe.

Offline Ambivorous

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Re: Want advice in how to learn pixeling

Reply #6 on: August 16, 2015, 04:17:21 pm
If I were to go back and learn pixel art again (I say, as though I consider myself any good at pixel art yet - which I do not) I would have started off with traditional art first, so I agree with Joe on all parts.

What I tried to do was start with basic shapes, then trying to combine those simple shapes into more complicated shapes and eventually produce some kind of "art," but actually I wasn't producing any art at all. It was more akin to me throwing paint onto a wall repeatedly for several weeks and it eventually resembling some image and me claiming to be an artist (though hilariously I probably would be).

Then I discovered studies.
It was on these very boards, over in The Daily Sketch thread. You can look at my history of posts to see the exact messages, but the long and short of it is that I started to learn traditional, still life drawing.
Originally a thumbnail study, which went horribly, but showed the others that I had no concept of value (brightness), so I set off on my adventure of doing value studies. That taught me so much in no longer than 3 weeks that my view of life changed from then on. Joe dropped some time frames on the year scale, but honestly if you persevered a mere hour a day for three months you'd be an exceptional artist already, provided you were given the appropriate level of challenge and had a good aptitude for learning.

I was not so diligent unfortunately, but I certainly got an awful lot better and I do try to do studies every few days.
I have learned that pixel art is about taking something from real life (still life drawing), then highlighting which parts of any object define them from any other object (this is much like drawing caricatures or cartoons) and then representing those details with small squares in basic shapes using limited colours to produce your piece.
By that view alone you can see that you shouldn't make pixel art before first learning the other aspects.

Currently my plan is as follows:
If I want to pixel something new I first sketch it in my sketch book with a physical pencil. I draw upwards of 50 versions of the thing I want to draw from various pictures off the internet. This gives me a mental arsenal of what makes this thing unique. Once I've done that I can draw it from scratch and I do just that many times. Further I cometimes copy what other artists have done to define the object, compare it to my own and come up with a final idea.
I always do value studies because those teach you the idea of how to define shapes with light, but particularly if the thing I'm pixelling has new, complex shapes involved.
Finally I need to get used to the colours associated with my subject. This part you can actually do directly in the pixel art format, or you could do thumbnail studies.

Then I employ all my knowledge of pixel art to make a product. Thing is there are just some things that make it easier/are essential to this point alone.
Things like the cluster study which teach you what complex ideas the simple shapes of a few pixels can produce, and how those ideas change depending on the bordering clusters and how the overall feel of a piece can be changed just by aligning the "grid" differently (as in trying to hide the grid from the viewer in the same way you would while creating tiles for a top-down game).
But honestly from here on out you will mostly just learn from the wizards that run around giving advice on these forums.

So yeah, tl;dr you just need to learn how to do traditional art, and then pick which pixel art techniques you think are most important and learning those, and then ask people who do pixel art any questions you might have because they're pretty willing to offer up any knowledge they can. Oh and try to practice for an hour a day because that works amazingly (and on any given day doesn't feel like too much work - if it does then just spend half an hour a day).
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Offline Uhfgood

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Re: Want advice in how to learn pixeling

Reply #7 on: August 16, 2015, 07:25:32 pm
Thanks for that excellent reply.  I'm not disregarding anything anyone is saying.  I know you need to know traditional art (I figure I'm learning that concurrently).  What I really wanted was something like this article - http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/game-programming/how-do-i-make-games-a-path-to-game-development-r892 -- In it Geoff Howland lays down a path to development by having you complete specific games.  First he says tetris, then breakout, and then further.  This is what I'm trying to figure out with regards to pixel art.

What kinds of pieces should I start with?  Once I've done those kinds of pieces what would I go onto next.

For instance, maybe I should start out with simple geometric shapes in 2D.  Just to get used to pixeling with my mouse.  Then I make shapes in 3d.  Then I try to find objects that fit the 3d shapes and just do small objects.  May be I should grab some photos and then copy them.  Notice: I'm not asking how to make a pixel cube, but rather should I do a pixel cube and then what, pictures of moving boxes as the next step or what.  WHAT DO I DRAW? not how do I draw it.  Am I making sense?

I will use all your advice, and like I said I'm not disregarding anything but I'm asking a specific question.  You know an obvious progression which would probably govern what I do is resolution.  I could start with 8x8 images and then move up to 16x16 and 32x32 and 48x48 and so on until I'm at a certain resolution.  So these are specific progressions I could start with.  Do I start out with house hold objects, or tiny landscapes.  Am I being clear at all?  I feel like I must be miscommunicating.

What would be the "Path to becoming a pixel artist" not how do I do something specific.  I know I need to know art in general, I know I need to practice, but what do I practice on?

Anyways please don't feel like I'm trying to be a nuisance because I'm just trying to pin down specific steps on what to work on (now how to work on them).

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: Want advice in how to learn pixeling

Reply #8 on: August 16, 2015, 07:52:06 pm
I will use all your advice, and like I said I'm not disregarding anything but I'm asking a specific question.  You know an obvious progression which would probably govern what I do is resolution.  I could start with 8x8 images and then move up to 16x16 and 32x32 and 48x48 and so on until I'm at a certain resolution.  So these are specific progressions I could start with.  Do I start out with house hold objects, or tiny landscapes.  Am I being clear at all?  I feel like I must be miscommunicating.

wrong. the resolutions don't differ in terms of difficulty. They difference of them lies in how difficult it can get to illustrate things with fewer pixels readable. The bigger stuff it the longer it takes to render with pixels, but that has more to do with mechanical work than with difficulty.

The question really is what you want to specialize in.
Portraits provide different challenges from landscapes.

If you don't have a good feeling for proportions, forms or value, focus on that before doing anything else. That's the absolute basis.

From there you can move on to complex stuff like portraits, human body and anatomy, drapery etc.

What's maybe a good practice is to take a reference picture and just draw it 10-20 times.
Limit yourself to like an half an hour per try or even less - 10 min is fine depending on the image. Get rid of color. Focus on form and proportion. Draw it with pencils, charcoal or. Don't erase.

Just do that practice one time to see what the results are, if you haven't done it before.

something like that would be fitting for the task, since it has interesting value seperation but very distinctive details, while not being overly "specific" (like e.g. a face)


The most difficult thing to draw is most likely a convincing human face, our brains are really good if it comes to recognizing faces and that's what makes it so easy to spot the tiniest issues in them.
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Offline Ambivorous

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Re: Want advice in how to learn pixeling

Reply #9 on: August 16, 2015, 08:47:43 pm
What I really wanted was something like this article - http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/game-programming/how-do-i-make-games-a-path-to-game-development-r892 -- In it Geoff Howland lays down a path to development by having you complete specific games.  First he says tetris, then breakout, and then further.  This is what I'm trying to figure out with regards to pixel art.

Wow, don't ever do this. Don't ever recommend this to any new programmer - you will put them back so many years if they try do things this way.
But this does bring some nice analogies.

You can't just program a game without knowing how to code.
In our analogy 'coding' is 'traditional art' and 'game making' is 'pixel art'. You see how you SHOULDN'T try making a game if you don't understand programming? It's the same thing - You can copy some tutorial to make a game and in the end you will likely have a working game, but you will have NO IDEA how you did it; you just copy-pasted and you can do the same with pixel art, but don't expect to know anything about pixel art afterwards.

Also, once you know how to code properly and you understand the concepts of object oriented programming and are extremely comfortable with lots of different functions in your chosen language (and even different languages because the way of thinking is the important part) and know how to use openGL (or whichever graphics library you are comfortable with) then making ANY of the games listed on that article would be child's play for you to make. I could make Tetris or Breakout or Galaga in a few hours with no problem, because I already know how to program and despite never making them before it would be easy for me to do. This is because of all the effort I've put into learning how to code and it pays off in enabling me to make those games with very little effort.
This is the same with pixel art.
If you're really good at traditional art and you understand values and contrast and colours in any given medium of your choice (and like languages, media are easily changed between) and then you know some simple rendering like clusters (the current trend in making pixel art, much like openGL is pretty popular in indie games) then making any pixel art in any perspective is going to be similarly easy.

So now that I've explained that, you may ask more specifically. Do you want us to tell you how to learn traditional art before delving into pixel art, or are you already capable of doing traditional art? or do you want us to tell you which kind of perspectives are easiest and what kinds of games to copy to kind of get an idea of how to make generic pixel art (really slowly)?
If you just want the latter I really doubt people here are going to be willing to help, because they take a lot of pride in not only their work, but also their advice.
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