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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
  • 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

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