Pixel art, a rare skill to be learned?

[Dusty]

I don't think pixel art is a rare skill, it's just not widely recognized for what it is. Many people, like kids, play 2D games but never realize that method used to create such game graphics. My family sees my pixeling on my computer all the time but I don't think they really fill in the gap between what I'm doing and what they see when they play a 2D game. So I guess in a way, pixel art has a profound purpose, yet widely overlooked.

[Carnivac]

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.

Firefox 3.6 looks like it has ways of not filtering the images judging by the Minefield builds I been using lately.  Seems you can use tags in your webpages to force them to have clear images on everyones machine (provided they using the updated browser too) and you can set the userContent.css on your own machine so that all pages on the net have no blur when viewing them.  Just have to wait for the full finished 3.6 to come out.

Get them to use Linux

Linux nearly put me off using computers at all especially cos at my last job that's all they had on their PCs.  Only reason I even have to use it at all these days is that it's the only OS I know of that can install on a PS3 (regular, not slim).  Just feels like the OS made for people with too much time on their hands.

[Ai]

Linux nearly put me off using computers at all especially cos at my last job that's all they had on their PCs.  Only reason I even have to use it at all these days is that it's the only OS I know of that can install on a PS3 (regular, not slim).  Just feels like the OS made for people with too much time on their hands.

<OT>

You can customize everything in Linux (versus Windows which tries, and fails, to say 'I know best').
That doesn't mean that you should (but if you're high on power, like geeks can be, you might customize everything.
And you might even try to convince others that they should do the same

To be more precise, Linux is just a kernel, which you've probably never interacted with directly.
It's the distribution you use (Ubuntu, RedHat, Debian, ...) that determines what your experience will be, since the distribution makes choices about what are sensible defaults, what's important to have installed by default, the tradeoff between precise control and 'working good enough out of the box that I probably won't change it'.

Personally, I don't like all the overblown GUIs on todays desktop, so I chose Arch Linux; a basic installation of Arch is very small compared to say Ubuntu, and it makes it easier to take control of your system than others.
I spent very little time setting up ArchLinux, because it didn't make policy choices I disagreed with
(cf. Ubuntu, where I could never get the simplicity I wanted because it insisted on running all these different irrelevant interfering things)

Things like Ubuntu, you might find you actually like; I dislike them because they have the same problem as Windows: They assume I want to do fancypants stuff instead of simply getting the job done, or they actively interfere with me adjusting the system, or simply make it absurdly hard to find out *how* to adjust the system. (for this reason I've never had a Windows installation that I could consider as a 'working' installation.. despite doing plenty of different Windows installs)

I've used quite a few distros (Mandrake, Ubuntu, Slackware, Debian, Red Hat, Arch, Knoppix, PCLinuxOS...),
and I think it *is* fair to say that Linux systems and applications offer you more choice (which I appreciate that you may not always want - choice can be confusing!). Way more packages readily available, more choices of packages that fill a given role, etc.

Currently, Linux Mint (which is based on Ubuntu) seems to be the easiest distro, with the most stuff coming preconfigured with it. Probably what I'd recommend to someone like you if you ever find you *need* to work in Linux
(although LiveCD distributions like Knoppix are also quite capable in that sort of capacity, since there
is no need for installing and astounding hardware autodetection.).

The main things left that really do tend to require fiddling in Linux are:
Real-time sound systems (for music composition etc)
and
3D graphics</OT>

<_< ._. >_>

Quick! what can I say to be on-topic?

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.

I've seen some good pixel dolls.. But mainly I think the Flash-based ones are more in line with the concept of dolling than pixel art is, and the vector aesthetic discourages some of the silly tendencies in doll style  that can be seen in pixelled dolls (gratuitously smooth, or sparkly, or soft, or shiny. yeah, it's like they're some kind of porn -- clothes porn? glamourousness porn?)

[Atnas]

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.

Hmmm... I don't think this will get you very far. You should really study art primarily, and applications of it through different mediums secondary. I feel as if the skills learned in pixel art only give back to other mediums in small ways... Being a painter or illustrator first (or any other analog medium) and a pixel artist (or 3d artist, actually) second will yield much better results for any kind of art you choose to do.

Pixel art is kind of an end, not a means. Games wouldn't have done it unless they had to. They didn't do it because it was cool or anything. I'm all for high definition painterly 2d games since computers can now display loads of high color images at once.

or something. Just don't think that it will be easy to get hired as a pixel artist without backgrounds in other mediums. It shows through your art.

[CharlesGabriel]

Hmmm... I don't think this will get you very far. You should really study art primarily, and applications of it through different mediums secondary. I feel as if the skills learned in pixel art only give back to other mediums in small ways... Being a painter or illustrator first (or any other analog medium) and a pixel artist (or 3d artist, actually) second will yield much better results for any kind of art you choose to do.

Pixel art is kind of an end, not a means. Games wouldn't have done it unless they had to. They didn't do it because it was cool or anything. I'm all for high definition painterly 2d games since computers can now display loads of high color images at once.

or something. Just don't think that it will be easy to get hired as a pixel artist without backgrounds in other mediums. It shows through your art.

Good thing you pointed this out... I do sort of lately realize that... I have been studying art in general, through books and tutorials from artists so far... I have in consideration to attend art school sometime in the future lol but at this moment I'm at the very least studying what I think I need in order to further the quality of my pixel art.

I also agree with the whole pixel art being a thing companies had to do for games and such... I have been reading a lot lately lol, trying to get most of my info straight, not only to know more, but also cause I want a better understanding of art in general. I'm interested into learning illustration and CG stuff, in fact I can draw and have read / done some practice in both, but lol I'm too much a rookie as of now.