Pixel Art Tips & Tricks

Making pixel art at first can be tough. It can be overwhelming, especially because the way you need to think is very different from any other art style. In most art, the more detail you put on the better, but in pixel art the less detail you put the better! Therefore, the first tip I'm going to give is

    1. Communicate as much as possible with as little pixels as possible. 

That is a little vague but once you start messing around with it you'll start to understand what I mean. Moving on I'll give some more practical tips that will improve your drawings. Most of this is very simple and easy to understand. 

No Jaggy Lines

Jaggy lines? Aren't pixel lines by definition bumpy? Yes, but here's what I mean. 

Which line looks better? Most would say the top one. In general, keeping lines even, with the same amount of pixels per row will look better. 

3. 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1

One of the most frustrating thins in pixel art can be trying to get a circle to look just right, but if you follow this simple trick, you'll get a decent-looking circle. Note: Some pixel art sites such as pixilart.com have circle tools, but most do not. First, decide the size of your circle. I'm going to stick with 4 at the bottom, top, and sides. I draw a line four pixels long, and then one pixel above I draw two lines next to it that are three lines long, and repeat, each time decreasing the length by one. 

I continue doing this for each side. 

At the end of each segment I have a line that is only one pixel long, this pixel is shared as the endpoint for each segment, and voila! I have a decent looking circle!

I hope you found these tips helpful! If you did, comment below!