AuthorTopic: Can anyone become a pixel artist?  (Read 3255 times)

Offline Natsu_Firefox

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Can anyone become a pixel artist?

on: June 12, 2016, 09:40:37 pm
I dont feel particularly art inclined or like an artist at all. I just want to be able to do fairly high quality art as a pixel artist. Can anyone become a pixel artist?I want to be able to make art like "This" http://imgur.com/a/HY9Tv in a couple weeks. Is it even possible?

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: Can anyone become a pixel artist?

Reply #1 on: June 12, 2016, 09:59:15 pm
Can anyone become an artist?
Yeah really anyone can become an artist, the question usually is just how good you can become as an artist.
As far as I'd judge it according to my observations a lot of artists start out with strengths which can differ greatly.
Some people are good at certain  skills, like making expressive character or conveying three dimensional form, are pretty good with measuring proportions or other things on a subconscious level.

BUT
and here we get to your second point.
Even if you have on, two or a bunch of skills which you are just good at, there are hundreds of different things in art you have to consider, to learn and to get good at at a subconscious level.
And even if you have someone who tells you clearly "do this, not that" you still have to figure it out for your own.

Pixel art is 90% normal drawing and 10% pixel specific technique.
If you are a person who drew for all their life and already made experiences in various mediums, it' sno problem to learn to pixel stuff in the quality of your examples in a week - because the pixel aspect is the smaller aspect you have to master.

If you are a beginner at art who starts out just now and you never have made any art experiences so far, "a couple of weeks" simply isn't enough to get as good as people who devoted years and time of their childhood in developing these skills.

On the other hand far more important than doing good work is to have some kind of deeply personal fulfillment in creating this kind of art. If you don't have fun with creating it, it's highly unlikely that you will do it long enough, to even get considerably decent at it.
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Offline Atnas

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Re: Can anyone become a pixel artist?

Reply #2 on: June 12, 2016, 10:59:01 pm
I echo everything Cyangmou has said.

It's also a lot about time spent. How many hours a day can you devote to this? And can you also be mindful of how you're spending your time?

In my opinion, art needs to be one, if not the most important things in your life, if you want to become good at it. There's a reason why artists often forget to eat/sleep/etc. I am not encouraging unhealthy behaviour, but to become truly skilled at anything, with finite time and energy, there is simple math in how you are dividing your efforts.

If you're starting from almost nothing, you could potentially get as proficient as the example in a few weeks, but you need to engineer your life to meet what that demands.

I recommend the following:

-Plot out how much time per day you have not obligated to other things.
-Drink lots of water. Your brain is 75% water. Also stretch often to improve blood flow. Your brain is the organ responsible for art.
-Detach your ego from your work, so that you can share it for critique without fear. In general, practice detachment. You can feel pride for your accomplishment, seeing improvement, etc. But to start defending singular pieces, or empathizing with them strongly enough where you dwell on them, is against the nature of growth and development.
-Recognize you don't know what you don't know, and that you will always underestimate the effort or skill something takes to achieve.
-Use most of your time to draw. What do you want to represent? You like JRPG type stuff, it seems, so draw humans (real humans, actually study humans, because if you like anime, those drawings you like are utilitarian means to communicate and the artists studied humans to be able to draw them) and trees and medieval houses and monsters/animals. Anything you want to pixel, draw it on paper.
-Use a smaller amount of time creating assets. Post them to the forum for critique, but also try to move on when you notice diminishing returns. Sometimes it takes a new angle of looking at things, to come back to something and do it better than you once did.
-Replace much of your entertainment/tv/gaming etc with watching other artists teach or draw/paint. Absorb.
-Nourish your creativity by following other artists, or sources of inspiration like nature photography, architecture, etc.
-If you have 25-100 dollars or so, buy an entry level graphics tablet off amazon, if you don't have one already. Pixel art with a mouse is like trying to draw by holding a shoe with a pencil stuck through the bottom.

If you can spend 8-12 hours every day, for 14 days, you could become as good as that example. The example you posted would be considered beginner level.

Offline Natsu_Firefox

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Re: Can anyone become a pixel artist?

Reply #3 on: June 12, 2016, 11:53:01 pm
The example you posted would be considered beginner level.

With that being said it really shows me how far I need to come if those are considered beginner level arts. I, being the new artist I am, thought that was pretty good. Thank you for your insight


Pixel art is 90% normal drawing and 10% pixel specific technique.
If you are a person who drew for all their life and already made experiences in various mediums, it' sno problem to learn to pixel stuff in the quality of your examples in a week - because the pixel aspect is the smaller aspect you have to master.

If you are a beginner at art who starts out just now and you never have made any art experiences so far, "a couple of weeks" simply isn't enough to get as good as people who devoted years and time of their childhood in developing these skills.


I thank you as well.

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Re: Can anyone become a pixel artist?

Reply #4 on: August 01, 2016, 08:59:40 pm
Nnnnot sure what that link was about, but I recommend starting with the Loomis guides. He's probably one of the better starting points for beginner artists, and make no mistake pixel art does indeed require a lot of artistic ability to look good.
Strong understandings of cartooning concepts especially are important, the overlap between those skillsets is startling.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline Atnas

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Re: Can anyone become a pixel artist?

Reply #5 on: August 01, 2016, 09:18:05 pm
f you are a beginner at art who starts out just now and you never have made any art experiences so far, "a couple of weeks" simply isn't enough to get as good as people who devoted years and time of their childhood in developing these skills.
OMITTED SPAM LINK
Nnnnot sure what that link was about, but I recommend starting with the Loomis guides. He's probably one of the better starting points for beginner artists, and make no mistake pixel art does indeed require a lot of artistic ability to look good.
Strong understandings of cartooning concepts especially are important, the overlap between those skillsets is startling.
That was just a spambot who just copypasted from cyan's post further up the page dude   :P