Pixel Art

Over the last two years, my primary focus in becoming a game developer has been on programming. I’ve made a lot of progress with my programming in the last two years, and I’m very happy with that, but I’m starting to feel like it’s time to balance that out by leveling up in other areas.

As a “game developer” I have to be proficient in a lot of different skill sets. My greatest strength, and how I see myself primarily, is as a designer. I am a designer who can program, draw, and to a very limited extend, do audio. No matter what I do, the more time I spend on doing it, the better I get.

Lately, I’ve been feeling like getting back into graphics. I find that when it comes to 2d video games, the stuff I have always loved the best has been low-res bitmap graphics, what has come to be known as “pixel art”. Pixel art is deceptively simple. It’s not easy to do well, and it requires a deep understanding of how shape and color work when the constraints are turned up almost as high as they can go.

I’ve been reading a lot of tutorials on how to do pixel art better, and I’m starting to try my hand at it. Now that I have a better understanding of what goes into good pixel art, I’m starting to feel less frustrated while working and enjoying the results more.

I’m at a point now where I feel like I won’t be embarrassing myself by sharing my work, and I really am interested in getting feedback from people who appreciate this kind of stuff, so I’ll be posting completed works and maybe some works-in-progress, along with my comments about it all.