While there’s great dedicated tools for making pixel art, you can use any drawing program to follow along.

There’s no point to making pixel art where the pixels aren’t evident.įor this article, I’ll be using Clip Studio Paint. Start with a small (resolution) file size, so the pixel unit is visible. The goal is to create an artwork that can be used used as a social media avatar. You can draw yourself, make a fanart or invent a character. I want you to create a 64×64 pixel portrait. It’s beneficial to respect the fundamentals and the techniques of old-school digital artists – but it’s not obligatory to work like them.įor this article, we’ll work on an approachable challenge. The technical side of this art form is important, especially if you want to make an homage of a video game.īut remember that you don’t need to force yourself to create a 32×32 pixel size artwork with only 3 colors, if you don’t want to. In this article, I’ll highlight some characteristics, basic techniques and guidelines so you can start making your own pixel art.Īll the information here can be applied to any ‘style’ and any software. While no longer a necessary approach, forcing yourself to create in the boundaries of an old technology or set of techniques can help you as anīelow are some examples of my exploration with pixel art.

Computer graphics and digital art as we know them today have a root, and that is pixel art.īack in the day, there wasn’t a ‘Pixel Art’ style because every art made on a computer needed to be pixel-by-pixel artwork.Īs computers evolved, the capability to render images became more advanced, enabling digital artists to create without the limitations of old hardware.Ĭreating art with these limitations in mind is the core of pixel art as an art form.

Clip studio paint turn off 3d grid