Pixel Tutorials
There’s a lot of pixel art guides out there. Here are the best I’ve found
- The lopsec.com database of pixel tutorials is putting in a ton of work cataloging everything they can find (many of the ones here will show up there)
- The ever-famous “So you want to be a pixel artist”
- Derek Yu’s sprite tutorial
- PixelJoint’s introduction to the various aspects of pixel art
- Pixelation’s Knowledge Repository, a dense read but a great crash course in pixels
- A solid introduction to pixel art for beginners
- “Les Forges Pixel Art Course”, a textbook-sized set of tutorials on pixels
- A set of tutorials from Finalbossblues.com
- A tutorial from one of the best artists on Pixelation (archived)
- How to fix common mistakes that beginners make
- Sprite artist extraordinaire Judas walks you through a nice, straightforward fighter-spriting technique
- A good look at ‘Selective Outlining’
- Tips on anti-aliasing (from a site with a bunch of other good tuts)
- “The Complete Guide to Isometric Pixel Art”
- The basics on background tiles
- Texturing your backgrounds
- Another good introduction to pixels and isometric style
- A guide to SquareSoft style game art
- How to pixel backgrounds
- Some basics on using GIMP for pixel art
- For the girls, a nice site with a good introduction to pixeling bases, etc.
Forums and Personal Galleries
Sites where pixel artists post their art in forums or their own galleries
- PixelJoint – the web’s top pixel art forum
- Pixelation – the web’s other major pixel art forum, frequented by some real pros
- Great discussion/showcase on The Independent Gaming Forums about the best game pixel art
- The MUGEN Fighter’s Guild – great site to follow the latest Mugen creations, good Graphic Arts subforum for sprite showcases
- DeviantArt’s GPixel group – a good collection of deviantArt’s better pixel art
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Personal Sites
- iammanyninjas has MUGEN and sprite work, related commentary and youtube links
- The personal page of one of the best pixel artists out there. Good links section
- I can’t read Japanese, but sometimes I come across dot art websites that are worth saving
Game Sprites & Rips
Galleries of sprites ripped from games
- PrimeOp runs the best oldschool game site on the net at Scrollboss
- Sprite Database
- The Video Game Atlas features countless background maps
- The Spriter’s Resource
- Emugifs.com – the legendary sprite and background vault
- Fighter’s Generation
- Game Sprite Archive
- Sprite Rip City, one of the earliest sources for random rips (no longer updated)
- Street Fighter Galleries – including rips
- Sigil of Slateman – rips including backgrounds
- Video Game Museum – tons of rips including game endings
Pixels on Youtube
Video tutorials or walkthroughs showing different techniques.
- SinhRa demonstrates a “Photoshop to Sprite” example that I definitely endorse
- A runthrough of a well made isometric building
- FrankieSmileShow has a bunch of high-quality work in his video uploads list
- Before3D shows how to work with fighter sprites in his uploads list
- A sprite built straight from pixels. I don’t know how people do it
Tools and Other Resources
Resources to help your pixeling or game-making, or just fun experiments
- The online Pixel Font Generator (where I got fonts for this site), from NFG World
- ASEPRITE, a fantastic sprite editor and animator for Windows and Mac
- SmillaEnlarger: enlarge your pixel art into a surprisingly well-defined and smooth image
- RotSprite, a tiny but effective sprite rotation program that can rotate your pixel art much more smoothly than normal
- Street Fighter Palette Database – for all your coloring (a.k.a. palette stealing) needs
- Fighter Factory: Fix up your sprites the Mugen way – check YouTube for some good tuts
Other links
Sites that may or may not be related to pixel art, but worth checking out
- To be a good spriter, you need to be a good artist. For a great crash course in digital art, read through this classic
- For an introduction to how to make sprites move nicely, read “Darkstalkers and the 12 Principles of Animation”
- Here’s an article where the artists behind Mercenary Kings give their own tips on animating sprites
- Youtube user WizzyWhipit brings the 90s back hard and loud with authentic sounding Capcom CPS2-style soundtracks
- The ever-lovely IsoCity
