+ My first pixel graphics!

[aversion]

I've been interested in pixel graphics for quite a while now, the work of susan kare and hide itoh especially, but I've never attempted to create my own.

This weekend though, after seeing this network diagram on a website linked thru K10k.net, I decided to have a go at my own, and here it is




it was fun to do and almost quite meditative, focusing all your attention on little dots

[calpomatt]

Nicely done

That must have taken you some time. What program did you use?

[Black_phoenix]

looks very nice, how long did it take u 2 do ?

[hollywood]

WOW!! Are there any tuts out there explaining how to make these things? Aversion your so good at everything.

[Ian424]

tons better than the pixel stuff i've attempted

i think its just a matter of setting up good angles, and from there it is just how you set up the colors / texture of things.

i think you could just do em in photoshop, or in ms paint or some program that makes it easy to do pixel by pixel drawing.

[aversion]

glad you like it, I'm going to do a few more things pixel-style for an application I'm working on, some nice icon stuff.

it's really not that hard, there aren't any specific tutorials, I read thru this but really once I realised that everythign is based on this copland style, where you go two across and one up, it all sort of fell into place!

I have had a lot of experience with pointelism in the past and i think that really helped, here are a couple of drawings I did with a mapping pen a few years ago, you can see what I mean, there's an obvious parallel between doing these and pixel graphics so i think I had a head start





cheers

[aversion]

Originally posted by Ian424
tons better than the pixel stuff i've attempted

i think its just a matter of setting up good angles, and from there it is just how you set up the colors / texture of things.

i think you could just do em in photoshop, or in ms paint or some program that makes it easy to do pixel by pixel drawing.

yeah the angles are important, 2 across one up, that was the key for me.

I used photoshop because you can put everything on layers, but you could use paint if you want, I would recommend PS though, it helps so much to be able to amnipulate your elements.

[Ian424]

Originally posted by aversion

Originally posted by Ian424
tons better than the pixel stuff i've attempted

i think its just a matter of setting up good angles, and from there it is just how you set up the colors / texture of things.

i think you could just do em in photoshop, or in ms paint or some program that makes it easy to do pixel by pixel drawing.

yeah the angles are important, 2 across one up, that was the key for me.

I used photoshop because you can put everything on layers, but you could use paint if you want, I would recommend PS though, it helps so much to be able to amnipulate your elements.

just using a 1px brush, zoomed in then? i tried some pixel art before, i used indexed color.. i dont know if you can use layers with that but for doing gifs/pngs it helps.

[calpomatt]

Originally posted by aversion

Very very nice. I've attempted pointalism before and always became impatient and stopped. I must have A.D.D. or something. I have a cousin that I would consider a great artist and your pointalism drawings are right up there with his. I especially like the top one. The expression and shading are top notch.

[aversion]

ian424:
yup, I use the pencil tool with a one pixel point. Make sure that anti-aliasing is turned off for all the fills etc. I find it useful to have two views of the image open, one at 100% and one at about 600% which I work on, that helps you see what you're creating.

not sure what you mean by indexed colour, I used only three grey shades for the whole thing (plus the odd bit of blue) and just used the eyedropper to grab them, then switch back to the pencil, real easy. The eyedropper works across layers if that's what you meant.

I also discovered a neat short cut I didn't know before. If you ctrl click on a graphic it will automatically select that layer as your active layer, this is very useful in a situation like this, though in a more 'graphicky' image where elements are stacked on top of each other I assume it would only select the top layer.

calpomatt:
thanks
I find it very rewarding to do stuff like this, as I said with the pixel stuff it really helps concentrate the mind and it becomes quite meditative. You just have to force yourself to persevere, once you get a little way into it you start to see it manifesting itself on your page and are encouraged to continue!

I used to sell images like these (though of victorian houses) at the pier in san francisco when I lived there for a while, people loved them

[Ian424]

aversion:

i didnt really think of using the pencil tool, makes more sense to, though.

indexed color can be used by going to Image>Mode>Indexed Color (or something like that anyway), it will limit your pallette to the colors that are on it, or if there are over 256, it will lower them.

its useful if you need to be under 256 colors, but otherwise its pretty annoying to arrange things.

[aversion]

I get it... I think you'll find that since so few colours are used on these images once you have them on the page you can just keep using the eyedropper (with the shortcut key) to grab colours and swap back to the pencil tool. This way you're never using the pallette to select colours more than once.