Creating a 1-Bit Pixel Art Illustration | From Pencil to Pixel!

It’s time for another entry into my ‘1-Bit Detective Boy’ series - but this time I’d like to try a larger illustrated piece, so follow along as I take this from a rough sketch concept on paper into a full pixel art piece!

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0:00 Intro
0:07 Pencil
4:20 Pixel
10:08 FINAL ARTWORK
10:54 CRT Time
11:24 VID OVER

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Check out my art here:

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Software used: Adobe Photoshop 2022
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Title sequence theme music by Failpositive:

Background music obtained through Royalty Free Planet:

Sleep Through Winter by Props
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Floating on the Water by Stevia Sphere
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Phantasia by Timecrawler 82
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Arcade by Raven
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

[KixPanganiban]

I've never been much of an artist, but watching your videos inspired me to pick up pixel art. I've been having a blast and I'm learning something new everyday, and more importantly I find it therapeutic as a before/after work sort of activity. So thanks a ton Brandon!

[JayFolipurba]

Instant energy and good mood, when that intro starts, you know you're in for a treat

[rickPalmeira]

I think this one deserves to turn into a t-shirt

[ultimatthias]

As someone who makes most of their art using ink (a fellow enjoyer of microns, I see) I've noticed that the 1-Bit illustrations have a lot of overlap with my style in the relationship between stark negative and black space to create really distinct shaping. Very cool! Always enjoy and learn something from your videos!

[sasume]

Love the pixel art! Keep up the great work

[johndurish]

Dithering at top of final piece helps hold piece together

[MrFacepunch]

This turned out to be one of my favorites of yours! At a distance the composition immediately reminded me of a yin-yang symbol, and got me thinking about this character of balance and the conflict between his two identities. Really great stuff!

[lafolleauxmostisma]

Oooooh the cat is so cute and tiny 😭💖
But seriously the whole piece is really great!
Good job!👌

[scottisokay]

your videos always make me feel better, thank you

[Sonnen_Licht]

Your videos always radiate a cozy vibe that is so comforting to me

[nittayoshifumi]

Oh, 1bit! Love the limitations that this style has!

[utoherozv]

This is just what I needed to get through that final push of my latest piece. These videos are always an instant watch for me and they really keep me grounded to pixel art as a whole. Thanks a ton!

[CKTDanny]

Really enjoyed listening to the design process on this one! I saw how the sketches helped inform the composition of the pixel art which came out awesome. Also it was really neat seeing them all in that layout on the left ✏️

There's something about the aesthetic of sketching on smaller canvases which I really like too, reminds me of some of the concepts I'd draw before converting ideas into CAD models.

4:14 does look pretty cool, loved how versatile this one ended up being with the colours!! 🎨🤩

[nnvgctn]

started my pixel art journey last june after years of watching your content very proud of where i've got to so far!

[svenhegenmusic]

~7:30 I couldn't agree more. Pixel art in general is always just one way of rendering an image. picturing how people or objects would look like in real life helps a lot creating a convincing design. sometimes drawing or imaging them not only in a photorealistic way but also other styles like manga, 3D cartoonish, paintery, whatever is also a great thing to push the boundaries of the character design.

For the finished piece I find it a tiny little bit too much detail in the upper half to be honest. at least around the flying object it might work better to reduce the granularity a bit and work with bigger surfaces for a better readability. all the swirling stuff behind it make me move my eyes away from it, which works great in the left side of the image, but if I want to read what is actually flying I find it a bit hard to understand what I am seeing.

Still looks really cool and I love the detective boy series :)

[michaelahellmich]

The intro alone is worth the like! <3

[DeathBySeksy]

Man I really love your videos. I’ve been watching them a ton over last few weeks and my pixel art has seriously improved lately. I can actually make a decent character in a 16x16 size now lol was never able to before. Also appreciate the variety in your content and the different ways you challenge yourself for new projects. But I definitely wouldn’t hate it if your next 20 videos were top down style and GB pallet… 😅

[afgh]

just got recommended this series, excited to try out 1 bit

[Twentynyne]

I love your content, these pixel works make me in awe because you go from super simple to very complex and it's so cool

[jonesy]

The harsh shadows that the two-tone shading provide do a great job of evoking the dark, moody atmosphere of noir films, which seems very in line with the general theme of this character series.