ILLEGAL Pixel-Art Techniques - (Aseprite, Krita, Photoshop) Pixel Art Tutorial

Let’s talk about forbidden but powerful PIXEL ART techniques. Let's reveal techniques that artists often keep secret. This tutorial is a valuable resource for advanced pixel artists looking to create better artwork more efficiently.

00:00 - Intro
00:33 - Technique 1
03:29 - Technique 2
05:41 - Technique 3
06:45 - Technique 4
10:40 - Technique 5
12:06 - Get the files
12:17 - Conclusion

This video was sponsored by Brilliant

[NeoShameMan]

Unfortunately it's not possible to like this video in asprite 😢

[dancingdoormanable]

I think having an asset pipeline consisting of these tricks is essential for a gamedev. Games need a lot of assets, so it's very important to produce them EFFICIENTLY, especially as a solo or rock band size studio.
Like many creative endeavors gamedev is also a search. Creating assets at a higher level in a non destructive way lets you change them more easily when the search lead you astray. This goes for EXPERIMENTATION and CONSISTENCY, as for the first you want to find what looks good, but for the second you want to have assets that look good together. Professionals gfx artists are trained in creating something in a certain look, so for them it's less of an issue. For the inexperienced or the amateur these technics may help you establish a consistent art style instead of a Hodge podge salad of assets.

[DotHackProject]

I added this video to a playlist called "aseprite"

[leonoliveira]

Those are actually great, and since photoshop is interchangeable with photopea, and Krita is just free, these are available to anyone who knows at least a thing or two about art. This is GOOD.

The one thing that got me a bit ruffled was the "a single click" from the other pixel art video without explanation - I thought it was a brush, but now I understand it's literally JUST LAYER EFFECTS.

I seriously wish I could do these in PixelOver - unlike Aseprite, it deals with bigger images and has more control over pixelation too. Probably not as good as bigger image editing programs, but it still has some interesting tools. But now that I think about it, since Krita has animation tools, I might not even need PixelOver, just Krita to do what I wanted.

Thanks for the content!

[CubsYT]

I would have loved to see you bring up the topic of doing these effects not in the art tool, but directly in the games shaders. Writing your own shaders where it takes either individual sprites or the entire screen and adds these effects at runtime opens a whole new world of possibilities, like light sources, shadows etc also being accounted for in the dithering.

[CarbsCode]

Any time I hear not doable in aseprite D: As someone that creates extensions for Aseprite this sounds like a challange 😉 😆

Love all these techniques! Great video 😀

[AppleHair]

Thank you so much for making this video. You showcased these techniques much more clearly than you did in that other video, and I was actually very impressed at how powerful these can actually be. I'm also very happy with how you addressed the point that these techniques shouldn't replace the per-pixel attention while showing the kind of actions that should be taken after using these techniques. You really nailed it with this video and I liked it a lot.

Despite that, I still think I will keep primarily using Aseprite for pixel art and I want to explain why. You see, the main thing that got me so invested in pixel art, other than my interest in the art form itself, was how straightforward the process of making pixel art is compared to making traditional art with a drawing tablet. Opening Aseprite and making pixel art by just putting the pixels on the canvas with my mouse feels like the closest digital art software will ever get to the simplicity of picking up a pencil and drawing with it on paper. What many people adore about Aseprite is that it doesn't try to make pixel art easier to do, but instead adds quality-of-life improvements to the process of making pixel art, while maintaining the simplicity it already has. Using the techniques you showed in the video might help me make pixel art faster, but in practice, keeping my pixel art drawing process simple is what led me to make so much pixel art over the years. At some point, I was making more pixel art than I was making any other kind of art and I would just keep making more and more pixel art drawings every day, so in my point of view, trying to make this process faster can potentially just slow me down instead, because I'm already able to make so much pixel art just because of how straightforward my process is.

Don't get me wrong though, I have nothing against using the techniques you showed in this video (and I definitely don't think it's "cheating" or anything like that), but I'm just saying that there's a good reason why people still use Aseprite and look at its simplicity as a big advantage over other options.

[jackgibson]

thanks for the aesprite part of the tutorial it really helped me out

[Enocia]

Anyone who is offended or angry by the use of these tools is just mad and wanting to gate keep. Its so frustrating to see people get angry because "how dare you not do things the hard way". No. Wrong. Its good to use tools that help you create things more easily. It makes things more accessible to a wider audience of creators while keeping the integrity of the work.

[hansbrackhaus]

The pros from back then, you know, the ones living and coding and creating in a low tech world, the 80s, 90s, 00s would have used this without batting an eye.
When you see old Street Fighter or Darkstalkers art, it wasn't immediately done in a pixel program, no, they actually drew them as paper animation cels first, scanned those, shrank them etc.
They did everything they could to make their work easier, it just happened that 'easier' back then is now considered 'painstaking' or 'budget breaking'
(many couldn't even use their home computers for development and had to use workstations)

There is something true about 'limitation breeds creativity', but all great painters, especially those from the renaissance, had few limits, at least if they were able to afford the tools, the pigments, oils, etc and they still created mind blowing artworks.

To create something good... it ultimately is the diligence AND the personal artistic view of the artist who does it.
Anyway, tl; dr: I'd say 99% of all oldschool old people game devs and artists would have leaped for joy at the tools we have today and would consider none of them 'cheating'.

[GG]

For pixel illustrations krita and Photoshop looks so powerful and unbelievable, but I still miss a good tool for animating npcs goodly like aseprite. Thanks to you now I know how I can draw most of backgrounds and scenarios for my games without spending alot of time on it, I didnt expect photoshop could do all this magic with less clicks.

[kloa]

Thank you for this video! I never knew how indie devs achieved quality art from 3 day game jams until I saw this. Yeah, it is a shortcut but anything goes if you want to release games quickly.

Game dev is extremely difficult and time consuming, the more you save time the better

[minementalx]

Just hopped into pixel art, compiled me aseprite and did several pieces in the last week pixel by pixel. Thanks for showing me the steps for the future. I like the slow approach atm, but to crank out more good stuff this is brilliant.

[psiryan]

I'm amateur at doing digital art work, so finding techniques like these is tremendously helpful. Thanks.

[DarthBiomech]

People who are angry at those who use these techniques are the same people who bash artists for using references or 3D mockups.

[AS-Aeros]

Bro technique 1 simply mindly blowing extraordinary fantastic!!

[rubenautuori]

I fell in love with programming thanks to your videos 😆🙃
All your videos are beautiful but this one is amazing💯, thank you very much😃😃🙌

[oskukoskinen]

Bro this is SO HUGE LIFESAVER FOR ME! I absolutely ADORE pixel art but it's surprisingly very difficult and I want to make a small platformer game with pixel art graphics for a school project (I'm studying to graduate as animator & graphics designer for games)

[uponeric]

There is nothing worse for your pixel art than "traditional notions!"

[seinruhe]

I've been working as a dedicated pixel artist for about 8 years and I find all of these techniques very, very useful yet a bit niche to use on a regular day of work.

I would say as long as you, as an artist, focus on always improving your fundamentals whatever you do to speed up the results is perfectly valid.

Although I have to say Aseprite may be the go to for most artists on a regular day, contrary of what it looks like on the video Aseprite is really, really powerful when it comes to pixel art.