AuthorTopic: Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?  (Read 8472 times)

Offline CharlesGabriel

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Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

on: October 30, 2009, 01:15:25 pm
Maybe I'm miscalculating this, but this is something I've been thinking for a while now... I really don't believe there are more than 30,000 pixel artists in the entire world... go to deviantart, most art you see is either traditional, mangas or CG illustrations... go to most Rpgmaker forums... NO ONE other than 3-5 out of 20,000+ members make pixel art... what do you say? do you think that there are more than 30,000 pixel artists in the entire world? give your opinion and your estimate number, you might wanna say why you think so as well.

...by the way, I know I said "skill" even though we all know Pixel art is an style of art... I put it as "skill" as in to "knowing how to make pixel art" not trying to change the true definition of the word.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2009, 01:19:00 pm by Antifarea »

Offline Soleil

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Re: Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

Reply #1 on: October 30, 2009, 01:44:26 pm
Well depending on your definition of pixel art, yeah I'd say there are a very small amount of public pixel artists left in the world. After the fall of the Doll Empire, most pixel art disappeared. All that I've seen left are you guys, a few doll makers, microhero communities, and the occasional sprite creator.

Offline Gil

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Re: Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

Reply #2 on: October 30, 2009, 04:13:19 pm
There are still plenty. PixelJoint is pretty big, there's new people joining here every day, etc.

We are a dying art though, mostly because of screen resolutions. We have to double and eventually triple, quadruple, etc our art. People used to see pixels everywhere on their screen, now there are young people who never even had a screen where you could clearly see the pixels.

In a few years, kids will be going "what's with the squares?". The pixel itself is just dissapearing. Right now it's kept alive a little with DS games, but it's pretty much the only console platform that still has visible pixels and thus a use for pixel art.

Offline CharlesGabriel

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Re: Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

Reply #3 on: October 30, 2009, 06:08:54 pm
Well depending on your definition of pixel art, yeah I'd say there are a very small amount of public pixel artists left in the world. After the fall of the Doll Empire, most pixel art disappeared. All that I've seen left are you guys, a few doll makers, microhero communities, and the occasional sprite creator.

Yeah haha whatever happened to all those people who used to make dolls.  :'( I never made one myself but I used to like seeing a bunch of the stuff these people made... nowadays I don't really see much of that anymore. And I agree, I only see PJ, PL and a very few other sites where people do pixel art.

There are still plenty. PixelJoint is pretty big, there's new people joining here every day, etc.

We are a dying art though, mostly because of screen resolutions. We have to double and eventually triple, quadruple, etc our art. People used to see pixels everywhere on their screen, now there are young people who never even had a screen where you could clearly see the pixels.

In a few years, kids will be going "what's with the squares?". The pixel itself is just dissapearing. Right now it's kept alive a little with DS games, but it's pretty much the only console platform that still has visible pixels and thus a use for pixel art.

Yeah, that might be one of the reason why PA is dissapearing... and that's the thing Gil, a lot of the people in PJ are gone, same in here... retired I bet... so that's a crowd that basically don't exist unless they come back into the habit.  ::) ...and that's not to say half the people in PJ are here also, so if we're to sum up for a total of more than 30,000 I still have my doubts.  :huh:

There isn't really a way to get people into pixel art... I have tried sharing tutorials and stuff and motivating people to give it a shot, but meh no one has the guts nor the long term commitment to even bother starting.  :hehe:

Offline Carnivac

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Re: Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

Reply #4 on: October 30, 2009, 06:37:54 pm
Right now it's kept alive a little with DS games, but it's pretty much the only console platform that still has visible pixels and thus a use for pixel art.

I've noticed some PSP games using pixel art recently as a stylistic and nostalgic aesthetic such as Holy Invasion Of Privacy, Badman and a couple forgettable PSP minis I played briefly but the art in those is usually mediocre at best.  Makes me wonder why they bother.  If I knew how to actually code for those I'd try to make one myself.
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Offline JJ Naas

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Re: Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

Reply #5 on: October 30, 2009, 07:17:27 pm
We are a dying art though, mostly because of screen resolutions. We have to double and eventually triple, quadruple, etc our art. People used to see pixels everywhere on their screen, now there are young people who never even had a screen where you could clearly see the pixels.

I don't think pixel art will ever completely die out. Low resolution and pixel art CAN be seem beautiful even to a wide public audience where as other relics like greenscreen or greenscreen or see-through wireframe vector art is much harder to sell or make look good.

I'm not expecting to make a living out of doing pixel art for the rest of my life though, so I need to keep up with learning other skills as well. Flash, 2d illustration/concept art, graphic design, comics.. it's all related to some degree though.. and if you have a well trained eye for what looks good, then you only need to learn the new technology ( illustration, 3d, print graphics ) which is a much smaller hassle than training the eye-brain-hand -bit without which technical knowhow is useless.

Offline CharlesGabriel

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Re: Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

Reply #6 on: October 30, 2009, 09:05:12 pm
Right now it's kept alive a little with DS games, but it's pretty much the only console platform that still has visible pixels and thus a use for pixel art.

I've noticed some PSP games using pixel art recently as a stylistic and nostalgic aesthetic such as Holy Invasion Of Privacy, Badman and a couple forgettable PSP minis I played briefly but the art in those is usually mediocre at best.  Makes me wonder why they bother.  If I knew how to actually code for those I'd try to make one myself.


Yeah, but there are a couple of good games that use 2D graphics that are amazing graphically imo, like the mana khemia series, and some other gust games that are out in PSP  / PS2.

We are a dying art though, mostly because of screen resolutions. We have to double and eventually triple, quadruple, etc our art. People used to see pixels everywhere on their screen, now there are young people who never even had a screen where you could clearly see the pixels.

I don't think pixel art will ever completely die out. Low resolution and pixel art CAN be seem beautiful even to a wide public audience where as other relics like greenscreen or greenscreen or see-through wireframe vector art is much harder to sell or make look good.

I'm not expecting to make a living out of doing pixel art for the rest of my life though, so I need to keep up with learning other skills as well. Flash, 2d illustration/concept art, graphic design, comics.. it's all related to some degree though.. and if you have a well trained eye for what looks good, then you only need to learn the new technology ( illustration, 3d, print graphics ) which is a much smaller hassle than training the eye-brain-hand -bit without which technical knowhow is useless.

I would love to live only to make pixel art, but working with just one company like how some artists used to do in japan back in the 90s... and I agree, most companies want someone with experience of Flash, 3D and the rest you pointed out more than PA. :| I prefer to stick with pixel art for now, but those are some of the arts I want to learn later on.

Offline Ai

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Re: Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

Reply #7 on: October 30, 2009, 11:48:45 pm
There are still plenty. PixelJoint is pretty big, there's new people joining here every day, etc.

We are a dying art though, mostly because of screen resolutions. We have to double and eventually triple, quadruple, etc our art. People used to see pixels everywhere on their screen, now there are young people who never even had a screen where you could clearly see the pixels.

In a few years, kids will be going "what's with the squares?". The pixel itself is just dissapearing. Right now it's kept alive a little with DS games, but it's pretty much the only console platform that still has visible pixels and thus a use for pixel art.

My experience with vectorizing sprites leads me to think: In the future pixels will still be relevant.. as source material for vectorizing. You can make a much better quality vector sprite (given that you don't use gradients, which are a) slow and b) look weird)  by drawing a moderate resolution pixelled sprite with limited colors, vectorizing that, and tweaking the results, than you would by vectoring everything from scratch -- it's just the same principle that means lines of motions, skeletons, blocking-in shadows, etc helps.. pixel art provides a very tight framework for building vector art on.
This should stay around at least until 3d actually begins to be comparable to 2d in the stylistic arena (is this ever going to happen?)

I'd only expect pixel art to die when there are no longer conventional pixels.. who knows what the nature of future display technologies may be?
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Offline crab2selout.png

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Re: Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

Reply #8 on: November 02, 2009, 01:38:03 am
I've found the image filtering on all the latest browsers has been a pretty huge pixel killer for me. I barely look at the stuff anymore cause of how much I have to go out of my way to view PA now. I'm sure this plays a minor part in PA decline, but it has to be making it hard to convince young people to give it a shot seeing as it's becoming more and more difficult to show PA to them.

Also, I got a good laugh hearing about the dolling community dying out. I never paid any attention to that stuff, so I didn't know they had fallen on hard times. I always considered the doll stuff and that iso habbo hotel stuff the devil, anyways. Well, with a few rare exceptions. I've seen some really nice flash drawing apps, it wouldn't surprise if the dollers have simply upgraded their tools.

Offline Ai

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Re: Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

Reply #9 on: November 02, 2009, 03:33:23 am
I've found the image filtering on all the latest browsers has been a pretty huge pixel killer for me. I barely look at the stuff anymore cause of how much I have to go out of my way to view PA now. I'm sure this plays a minor part in PA decline, but it has to be making it hard to convince young people to give it a shot seeing as it's becoming more and more difficult to show PA to them.
Get them to use Linux:) (sortof kidding, but firefox, dillo, konqueror, epiphany etc all don't interpolate images as far as I know. Currently using FF3.5.3 myself)
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.