Why Pixel Art?

A raptor and the caveman from Prehistomelet.

Why pixel art? Short answer: I love it. But not for nostalgia reasons, I just love the look of it, animating it gives me a lot of joy. Pixel art was born as an answer to technical limitations, fell in oblivion when it became obsolete as consoles became powerful enough to display more and more pixels, and was born again when indie retro titles emerged.  Me? I used to make some low-res stickman fighting scenes with bazookas and environmental destructions when I was a kid with paint shop pro (all of them lost, to my despair) and picked pixel art again a few years ago, when the itch of game making became unbearable.

A running bear made for a Luduma Dare.

I don’t consider pixel art to be a fad, I believe we’ve been to a point where pixel art is an art-form, and has broken the shackles of nostalgia to become it’s own thing.  I don’t try to emulate the style of old games, I try to find my own path. I use limited palettes, small sprites (Kara is 25 pixels tall), an put extra attention to animations. Some people are sick of pixel art, and that’s not a problem. Noting is meant to appeal to everyone.

A spiting Dilophosaurus , from Prehistomelet.

On the production side, pixel art has some big advantages. it’s cheap, I can’t deny it. But don’t believe animating an 8 frames run cycle is an instantaneous process, drawing sprites might be relatively quick, animation, when done with very high expectations, can be a really, really long process. Thing is, as a one man team, efficiency is key. Making vector animations, another thing I know quite well would probably take a little longer, but not that much. I just love those little squares.

A drilling ship and an alternate model high resolution rendition, from Void Miner.

 

Find the sprites shown in this articles on their natural habitat on my Gamejolt page. Or on my my DeviantArt.