~Cowboy14's Pixel Art Tutorial~

[Harpy]

lol? why minecraft? But thanks and i look forward to seeing your progress :)

 

Just the close-ups are all pixelated (adurh pixel-art) and it makes me think of Minecraft. Hahaha. I'll probably try making one once my school ends in a couple weeks. :)

[Gbpackers31]

Awesome tutorial! This might actually push me to finally finish my pixel sig I made like two years ago (all I have is the sky to complete, which I never knew how to do). I'll try your sky technique as I quite like the outcome :thumbup:

[Aeon_]

 

That's my WIP using your tutorial. Thanks!

 

I must admit though, I used your stump and tree on the left hand side, as all my attempts looked like they were drawn by a four year old.

 

Any tips?

[Pat_61]

Lol I wasn't planning on this being a road... thinking more of a river lol but yeah I will fix that

[Alg]

This looks like something fun to try. Easy to understand guide as well.

[Nash]

You should give it a shot ALG ill always be here to help you ;)

 

Aeon the first thing I see is that your mountains, river and tree on the right have too busy of edges. Try making them all more wavy and less abrupt zig-zagy (terrible vocab but hopefully that explains it)

 

 

Otherwise nice work :thumbsup:

[Aeon_]

How would I go about doing that? Everything I do looks blocky, even on 1 pixel brush. :|

[Kaida23]

Great guide, cowboy. Can't wait to give it a try.

 

When will you be adding parts II and III?

[The Observer]

Thanks for the tutorial. Might inspire me to start my own actually. :thumbup:

[Nash]

@Aeon try loosening up when you draw line work. I like to start with the lightest grey in the pallete, do a quick scribble, then go darker and make more refined scribbles, then darker and then the black lining. That way you slowly work your way to the final linework and it helps keep it from looking box shaped.

 

Post whatever you come up with and ill help :thumbup:

[Pat_61]

 

That's what I have on my side project in math class this week XD

[Nash]

Looks good thus far :) my only suggestion is if your going for a sunset sky, make the mountains dark blue, purple or something other than orange. that way they contrast with the sky more.

[Aeon_]

Any better?

[Star.]

Your line art is all over the place. It's really scraggly and volatile, you still need to loosen it up haha.

 

I tried doing a little example so you know how smooth your lineart should be.

 

Ignore "my" river

 

 

Think about perspective, notice how in cowboys tutorial the river is almost straight? That's cause of the angle so your river should be straightish too.

 

 

For the black lines you want to do this:

 

 

 

anyway Cowboy would probably explain this better hehe but kinda wanted to help

 

EDIT: oh yeah, I also found that using the line tool in paint helped when I didn't want to do it pixel by pixel. If I used the pencil tool then it would take forever to clean up

[Aeon_]

I originally did it without doing the corners, then suddenly decided to do it with corners. >_<

[Nash]

Im going to give you a tip that helped me a ton starting out.

 

Secret method (kind of cheating but nobody will get mad at you for this method);

 

-Find a simple-ish landscape picture

-Save it and open it in paint

-Color over it with the paintbrush until its all covered and theres no remains of the original picture and its all broken down into solid colors you painted

 

That will help you get realistic landscapes down :) I did that for a while.

 

 

 

I did this really quick to show you what I meant. I took the image, shrunk it down (too much but you get the idea) and then filled it in with solid colors. Now all I have to do is shade it.

[Aeon_]

I'm not that good at shading to be honest. :|

[Nash]

It just takes time :) Ill try to find you my first pixels and youll see what I mean. They were terrible :D

[Aeon_]

Gah, did the filling in using the method you showed me, and my cat turned my computer off. >_<

 

Current signature:

[Nash]

I have an idea, start a new one.

 

Every time you finish a step post the new progress in your comment (keeping editing the comment every time you improve)

 

Every time you finished a step from the guide ill tell you if it looks good, what needs improvement and then you can move onto the next step :)

 

Good plan?

[Aeon_]

Ok, sounds good.

 

Step 4.

[Nash]

Ok this will be the post I keep editing.

 

So far so good :) that center mountain that uber pointy is a little unrealistic but it will work. Itll look fantasyish

[Aeon_]

Updated.

[Nash]

Ok with your mountains I want the lightest to be in the back and the darkest to be in the front. My coloring method isnt really meant for brown mountains its for when you have color mountains (green, blue, etc).

 

Edit your comment with the updated version of the mountains and we'll go from there :)

 

EDIT:

 

 

I shaped the mountains a bit and did the colors for you if you want to use this and work off it instead your free to do so :)

[Aeon_]

Ok.....trying to use a certain shade of blue and it's coming up as brown. >_<