AuthorTopic: 'Complete' Beginner  (Read 2295 times)

Offline ArcticPhreeze

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'Complete' Beginner

on: July 31, 2016, 04:10:57 am
I apologize if this isn't in the right area, but I think it fits better here than the general section.

I should start by saying hello! I'm ArcticPhreeze, a current art student sophomore with a lot of confidence in my ability with traditional art mediums (Drawing, Oil Painting, the pretty standard art school thing) but with a burning desire to do Pixel Art and spriting.

I had a lot of exposure to pixel art in high school with some horrible sprite fanart for things like Naruto and Dragon Ball, back when they had a really large online community who basically just copied styles from a few different games. It was incredibly amateur and nothing I made was objectively good at all but it was more than enough for me to develop a serious love for the art.

I apologize again for rambling, but this thread is essentially a question. How can I translate my traditional art skill into pixel art? Where should I begin, or what should I be looking to do to get myself set up? I have GraphicsGale and I am competent enough with my tablet to use it, but it still feels like I'm missing something? I know that it requires a lot of practice but Pixel Art is a lot more overwhelming than traditional medium, and I can't help but feel that I've not really gotten the picture yet.

If anyone could help me out, it would be greatly appreciated!

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: 'Complete' Beginner

Reply #1 on: July 31, 2016, 06:02:49 am
Start with a sketch, shrink it down as much as you can, then use that as a base.
Much of pixelart is just applying cartooning concepts, like distance models. It's helped me a lot to think of pixel-art in those kinds of terms.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline thewizard

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Re: 'Complete' Beginner

Reply #2 on: July 31, 2016, 06:53:03 am
Watch a lot of time lapses/references and start small like 16x16 or 8x8 then make your way up this way you will learn to create more with less and understand shading on a pixel level as well as many other different techniques.
But as you understand the most important thing is time.