Learning pixel art from a video game? | ‘Pixel Art Academy’ preview

I tried out the demo for “Pixel Art Academy: Learn Mode”, which is an upcoming game that teaches the basics of pixel art through a series of interactive tutorials and minigames. In this video I share a few thoughts about the demo and what to expect from the game!

‘Pixel Art Academy: Learn Mode’ is being developed by Matej ‘Retro’ Jan

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0:00 What is Pixel Art Academy?
1:06 Demo: Basics Tutorials
1:47 Demo: Sprite Challenges
3:11 Demo: Pico-8 Asset Design
4:30 Final Thoughts
6:11 VID OVER

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Check out my art here:

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Title sequence theme music by Failpositive:

Background music obtained through Royalty Free Planet:

Digital Sunlight by Raven
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Arcade by Raven
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Other background music courtesy of YouTube Audio Library.

[svenhegenmusic]

that was wholesome. what a nice idea. I thnk a lot of people who want to learn pixel art will love this. there's one thing about watching tutorials, but doing it yourself, while being guided by something like a game is very helpful. also since you're drawing everything inside the game itself you don't need any other painting software just yet. so that's a really cool thing.

[theejackalope]

Literally the week I went "I'm finally going to start actively learning pixel art." The timing is insane man. This looks so helpful thank you for bring it up!

[jno]

I really like the touch that you start by painting with only black pixels on graph paper. Just like many artists used to Plan their sprites back in the Day. :P
This Game really looks like a lot of art went into it!

[blazerchocobo]

The early exercises look a little like coloring books 🤔 But honestly it might actually be a good opportunity to shake off rust and test out workflow!
The details are so cute too!

[Metacious]

I think I backed this project back in... 2014? Time sure does fly.

It's been a while since I tried pixel art, this comes at a great moment to learn

[CKTDanny]

What a cute presentation! I love the creative UI elements; I feel like this sort of stuff is more important than it seems on the surface because it can inspire artists. I remember I gravitated towards Aseprite because of its fun UI 🎨

That was a neat preview of this game, I'm not sure if I would've discovered it otherwise! 😁

[seth_piano]

This is fantastic. I'm a piano player by trade. When I was growing up, I was fortunate to have a cheap Yamaha digital piano that had built-in songs and a simple screen that showed some of the structural details of each song as it played through it. I learned everything I knew about basic music-making from this one 200-dollar instrument because of the idiotproof way it was set up - ANYBODY could have learned from this.

Every domain needs something like this. This software looks like it's the same thing, but for pixel art :)

[Tonatact]

I really like the Idea of this! It reminds me of WarioWare D.I.Y for the DS.

[ImCurrentlyNaked]

Gamifying studying like this is an excellent idea. I know it's been tried with drawing/art as a whole previously, but that's obviously a lot more difficult given the amount of detail and such one must account for - so it seems like this is type of thing is a perfect match for pixel art, where it's so much easier to compare 1:1 to the master copy and the study and grade the student exactly (where this would be pretty unfair for an actual piece of art).

I'll put this on my wishlist, it looks pretty fun.

[Jesus_Christ_For_Real]

it was cool to see into the breach featured, that game has amazing pixel art

[eboatwright_]

Retronator’s stuff is awesome, really cool to see you try it out!

[_EnricosUt_]

While I wouldn't really get much out of this after making pixel art for 3 years and developing my own full games from the ground up, I think this could be an amazing tool for anyone who is just starting out.

I used to copy pixel art from games I liked to build in my Minecraft worlds and I think tracing like that really helped me understand fundamentals subconsciously, and this seems to be going for the same effect!

[calicow]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! This looks so relaxing. I'm going to grab the demo to play just as a wind down from work app.

[senflyer-]

I loved the Art Academy games on 3DS and Wii U! I think the interactivity made them so much more engaging than regular how to dos.

I could see this title becoming a hit with those looking to learn pixel art but not sure where to begin.

[dingus_maximus]

Kinda reminds me of Drawn to Life, for anyone who remembers those games. They were on the DS and you could draw your character and a bunch of assets in the world. I played them when I was pretty young and they really helped me develop an interest in pixel art.

Really cool to see someone making a game like this, thanks for showing it off!

[bramvanveen]

Retronator is amazing! He's got such a great approach to teaching and I can wholeheartedly recommend consuming his content. You'll walk away better for it.

[belinda]

Amazing video! I just discovered your channel now, since I'm following Pixel Art Academy and Matej =D

[mingamerking]

This looks really cool. I’m gonna try it out

[srber]

this looks amazing
the pico 8 aspect is really cool

[eeee]

very interesting,
also i was super hyped to see into the breach