Oekaki?

[Darien]

What, exactly, is oekaki?  It appears to me that it is a sort of blend between drawing and pixeling, although some I've seen have more pixel-level intent than others.  Gustav's, for example, seem so exact when drawn that it makes me think that there is most definately pixel intent work being done.  Unless Gustav's stuff there doesn't really classify as oekaki... but then again that's why I'm posting this.  I've never been able to find a good answer about it.  Is it usually done with a tablet as opposed to a mouse?  How much pixel level detail do you usually expect to go into?  Why can't I be awesome like Gustav?  Thanks.

[Rox]

Oekaki art is... ... art. It can be a bit of everything I guess. Using "oekaki" as a whole is, to me, like using "Photoshop" as a whole. Oekaki things can have auto-antialiasing and 32-million color blending and smoother-than-you brush effects and all. It just depends on how you use it. If you want to make pixel art with oekaki software, then I guess it's pixel art.

[NyanNyanKoneko]

http://www.playingwithyarn.net/oekaki/

I have an oekaki board set up for video game / pixel art.  =)

Just sign up and start drawing using the java tools on the site.   

That's where I made my avatar yesterday.

[Peppermint Pig]

Okay, I'll weigh in here

I define pixel art as follows: "Pixel Art is artwork designed to a high degree of pixel-level intent. " ( http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/pixipedia/index.php?title=Pixel_Art )

So there are degrees to which something can more readily be referred to as Pixel-Art. While we at Pixelation/Pixelopolis have appreciated the hand-drawn methods and teaching such, there are other methods.

Helm and I have a term for tools like airbrushes: Dirty. A dirty tool is one in which you're no longer able to finitely control every pixel, which then falls out of the bounds of pixel-level intent.

So, while I encourage all types of pixel art on this forum, I have to give a word of warning to people that are doing 'video game sprites' with CG/Dirty tools: We can appreciate the art, but don't expect people to critique it! I hope people can be more tolerant of this fact, because its important that semi-pixeled works, such as Oekaki and some Dolls, can be accepted at face value. We can learn from all art.

[ptoing]

Well, it is technically possible to do pixelart in oekaki. The pencil tool is 100% opacity and no aa. So you can pixel - technically.
But it is rather unsuited for pixels, you have 0 palette management so you have to have a on-image palette and the tools are limited (still better than MSPaint tho).

[NyanNyanKoneko]

Online oekaki tools are just updated versions of MS Paint, but they do handle different palettes, though not indexed color modes.  =)

It's good practice and fun, but you should definately avoid them for big or important pieces.   

[Ai]

Yeah, it varies widely. Most oekaki i've seen displays some, not much, pixel level intent.
Gustav and Flarn draw more pixel-accurate pics.

Several tools are more or less dirty or not according to how you use them. Pep, your example of an airbrush is accurate if you're painting directly on the image. If you're painting on the selection mask, though, you can refine it before laying it down. For instance, i made a good rough of a cloud by airbrushing the selection mask, then posterizing it to 5 levels, so when i filled the selection, it generated 5 colors.
In that case, only the colors are dirty, you can easily control WHICH of the colors is used.
It is similar to lowered-opacity penciltool in that.

..With the palette-map* filter, i am not really seeing a downside to analog-style painting -- you just put it back into whatever palette you want afterwards then tweak. Just have to have an accurate selection.
.. I just used the paintbrush tool to do combination AA and dithering
'Pixel-level intent' implies that you arrive finally at a picture where 95% of the pixels have been personally reviewed. Ergo you can use any tool as long as you finish with its effect under your control.


* it maps the intensity of pixel values to palette entries. intensities [0..255] map to palette entries [0..last_entry]. So it's a combination colorizing and quantization tool.