You have a true talent, not just as a pixel artist, but as a very clear and concise educator! I always enjoy how simple and easy to follow your explanations are. Color theory, perspective, design, you have an knack making those complex topics so accessible. Thanks for this one!
The idea that a single pixel can completely alter the interpretation of a low-rez sprite and how you can view these as permutations has always been what's drawn me to this medium as a way to learn more about art. Your channel has taught me so much about colour theory and composition; I think it's incredible that you can do that with a handful of pixels! That was a really nice breakdown of the essence of pixel art, fitting for this square guy's origin story ⏹️🐵
Hahaha the origin story; I'm just a simple man trying to pixel my way through the universe 😌 And yeah the low-res permutations thing is really the most fun, it's kinda like drawing but also puzzle-solving, so on top of being artistic it's also a satisfying exercise in the way that sudoku or tetris may be :D
As a person that is fucking lazy but dreaming of being an pixel artist this is so motivating, the changes you applied showed, what can be achieved if you stick with the process and keep learing. Much respect.
Thanks Brandon! I teach character design at university and always manage to fit in a class or two on making pixel art. But it's always a struggle how to convey something practical in only 2 or 3 hours. This exercise is PERFECT. I'll be using it for sure. You make extremely educational content. Thank you again! EDITED: Where the word "educational" is a the very end I had originally used the word "didactic" unknowing of the negative connotation of talking down it has in English. Foreigners mistake I'm afraid! :D
@@Chloroplastspectrum I'm afraid @fabiosonhandogrande1697 is right. English is not my first language, it's Spanish. And in Spain "didáctico" just means good for learning, without any negative connotation. Thank you for pointing this out to me because it seems like a mistake I could easily make in the future. Cheers!
I tried to do a thirty-day pixel art “challenge” (using only 16x16 / 1 bit), but I quickly got discouraged because with a limited screen size it was very hard to make an animal that looked correct to me. I will try this method you used. Thanks 😊
I tried doing the same, I think it's the animal one called septembit you're referring to. Making animals from scratch from the getgo was hell. I'm completely new to visual art as a whole, and making something with just 2 colours in such a small frame without any experience to reference it to is super hard. Defo gonna try this as well, I think it has more potential!
I think the last septembit may be a bit more accessible. Bit bigger of a canvas, few more colors and a nice sizable end result. Challenges are a great way to learn
@@Wimpiethe3 This MM approach seems to be working for me, because I have already made three SF2 characters (EH, G, and R), with no frustration whatsoever. 👍
It's actually kind of interesting that you use Megaman as an example because there's kind of another hidden lesson out of using Megaman as a direct sprite reference, and it's that a lot of characters in Megaman don't actually have the same silhouette as Megaman, and that what people often call "The Megaman art style" is entirely based on his sprite and his sprite alone Like, knowing *how* Megaman's style works will go much farther than just blindly copying over his sprite
As a Mega Man fan and artist(primarily traditional and digital outside of pixel art but I work with pixels too), I find it actually kind of funny in hindsight that the Mega Man NES sprite is basically THE pixel art base. Especially since Mega Man sprites in general(from the actual games, for the whole cast) are actually more diverse than the edits since Rock is tiny even compared to other characters in that original style. Even small, more-humanoid Robot Masters, like Heat Man, don't look like him. It's like the gamer "so retro!!!" equivalent to how, for over a decade on the internet, the whole 'Powerpuff Girls art style' in style mimic art was just turning a character into one of the Powerpuffs/Rowdyruffs, since otherwise that show just uses the exact same art style as Dexter's Laboratory with some alternate adjustments and motifs.
I think it's crazy how I also started out pixel art making Mega Man inspired sprites before I even started watching your stuff. This video was a blast from the past, really great work in coming a long way
Hi hello. I recently fell into a hyper-fixation surrounding pixel art and you are by far the best person I've seen covering the topic. And it stems from the fact that you don't exactly give tutorials (which for me are a one way ticket to not retaining anything). This exact video is a prime example. I watched it once, thought about the general idea and not the steps, decided I can do that and came back only to see how you set it up. And BAM in less than an hour I was able to make megaman sprites of Deku and Bakugo from my hero academia! I feel absolutely ecstatic. I've never done pixel art, but this singlehandedly has lit a fire that (hopefully) won't go out soon. Thank you!
Great stuff Brandon! I think a lot of beginners out there are stuck in the "unsure where to start" phase and this really breaks it down into a simple action plan to ease them into pixel art. It's awesome to see how much you care about helping out future pixel artists!
between playing the megaman games as a kid, and reading a lot of sprite comics growing up, I've always been fascinated by pixel art. I haven't done any pixel art in years, but I always enjoy your content. I also started with the good ol' megaman edits, though I actually started with MM7 sprites before switching to the smaller ones. I did a whole TF2 pixel art spray pack back when that was a thing, and one of my sprites was featured in a brentalfloss video (though it was without my permision, and it wasn't even a very good sprite for that matter....)
Great video!! I love pixel art because I grew up playing Atari, Sega genesis, and Nes, so seeing how the style is still alive and interesting after all the updates the gaming world has made, it truly is a awesome genre that keeps delivering!!
Thanks! And yeah same, I got interested in it from the nostalgia for retro games, and it's fascinating to see new artists discovering and appreciating the style for other reasons as well!
I tripped over this video after I'd already started doing this a week or two ago. I'm currently working on a "base model" sprite, just some simple colors and shading to give a vague idea to use as a starting point or stand-in for something else as I work on my game. I almost cried when I saw your spritework evolve too... it's amazing to know that not only did I start off on a pretty common path, but that it can very easily turn into something amazing if I just keep at it!
These sprite transformations really remind me of the front sprite updates through Pokemon gen 1 (Red/Green -> Red/Blue -> Yellow) They were all from essentially the same game but each iteration added so much more character to the sprites.
That was insane ! Thanks a lot ! I loved how the volume for the kind of "balls" on chun-li's head works so much by simply adding another semi-circle behind her head ! And i loved how you recreated the facial expression of Ken on the 2nd sprite. :D
Wow interesting video! I'm not a visual artist myself, but I love pixel art, it has such a unique charm to it. Thanks for explaining everything so clearly. As a musician, I also like how 8-bit music perfectly fits with 8-bit visual in the old days especially, you don't have that 1 to 1 ratio often in art.
thank you so much for making this!! i always link your beginner playlist whenever people ask me for advice. this will def help people understand how to do pixel art as a beginner!!
I was literally just thinking about starting my own pixel art journey, so this was perfectly timed! Your videos continue to be fascinating and inspirational, so thanks!
The retro style of 8bit to me SCREAMS video games. Its so enjoyable to put together, I work on sprites that are 8x8 and every pixel and shade it important. Im no professional or anything but i think theyre coming out pretty good on my channel. Im keeping it top-down to stay consistent, the perspective takes a little to wrap your head around lol
When I transferred into another college for game development a couple of years ago, I had virtually no experience with game development whatsoever. I couldn't program and I could barely do art. The only thing I had going for me were fundamentals gathered from doing cinematography, which surprisingly helped since at least I knew how to stage and animate. I started with pixel art since for many, me included, it seemed like the easiest place to start, and ultimately lead me to this channel. Honestly, these videos helped me a lot, since I could see the workflow and gather fundamentals for structuring pixel art, and frankly drawing on a fixed brush size and canvas made it really easy to fix details and not worry about consistency (since it was always consistent), and it's great seeing how clean my art came along compared with my other classmates. It's really something when I could examine and understand someone else's work and comfortably think to myself "yeah, I could make something like that" and actually be able to put money where my mouth was. I hadn't been so passionate about art and animation in a long time, and although I've since used pixel art way less and moved on to 3d art and animation, I still come back to watch these videos and learn something new.
This is exactly how I imagined my progress would be a few days ago -- starting from simple then upscaling it so I can add more details until it reaches some complexity to the design. I respect you as an artist and this video confirms my own thoughts which brings confidence in me to pursue pixel art even more. Thanks for this, Brandon!
As someone just starting out on my pixel art journey, having you break it down so concisely and say ‘this is what I did, this is how I improved’ was so helpful. Thanks!
This (along with all your other videos) is amazing, I'm planning to finally make a game idea that's been bumping around my head for over a decade now & I'll need to be e-learning how to do pixel art. Always been an inspiration since I found your channel.
THIS!!! THIS IS IT!!! I watched a bunch of others pixel arts already, and just felt it's not right for me and not enough information for me to practice. But this make it know where to start and want to practice and try it out after watching.
Very nice. Pixel art edits are definitely a common starting point for people, it's good to see where to go from there. It's not intimidating and you can see what you want to change, which can be easier than looking at a blank canvas and deciding what to start with. Like the famous "You're the man now, dog!" scene from Finding Forrester where he gets a pre-made text to type out, and when he feels his own words he should type them.
you have such a positive outlook on the almost-tired megaman sprite tracing and also megaman sprite tracing criticism dichotomy really interesting approach to developing it as a learning tool from someone who actually started there
I got to the end of this playlist far too quickly! I've been hopping around between different artists' tutorials, and your method of teaching has been, by FAR, the most helpful. Looking forward to any future content as I start my journey.
Awesome!! You've created some of the most interesting and expressive pixel art characters I have ever seen! Lotsa great posing choices too! Keep it up; you've taught me a lot!
honestly, i have been struggling to get into visual art in general for literally years now, and I think this is partly because I had no frame of reference for what my foundation was... I think I realize now that I really need* structure to the act before I can start progressing. i want that foundation to be visualizing the subject [and each of its faces] in my head... which is hard. it took me literally years to finally break into programming [started reading Mozilla's js documentation] so i think you just need to be persistent and keep practicing as much as possible everyday. it just scares me how little progress i've made on the art front
We had a similar way of learning pixel art! I started out recreating Sonic sprites before moving on to recoloring them, and then editing them to make them unique. As time went on I slowly got better and learned the basic shapes, and as of now Im on my way to making a full on game with custom sprites. Love ur vids man and it's always cook to see another spriter tell their story!
Thank you. You are my primary inspiration for pixel art, and I remembered you saying that you started with Megaman so I actually started practicing the exact same way you demonstrate in this video. I turned Megaman into Batman, Spiderman, etc. It's nice to see that this is actually a proper way to get started.
It might be a little thing but I loved the tidbit at 8:05 where he says he "found" this thing with the foot. That little detail shows that a large part of pixel art is very much a puzzle to be solved in a lot of ways. This video was incredibly helpful as a beginner looking for specific exercises to practice, so thank you!
Ive been wanting to get back to making pixel art and start from scratch again and this video gave me a great starting point again. Thanks alot my dood! Keep up the great work!
having made a (sometimes agonisingly) large amount of sprite pixel art, kudos for working through the entire process in a very granular way, and also for noting that one needs to embrace limitations.... one of the most daunting things i've experienced is the question "what do i do? how do i decide what to do next?". especially whilst facing the potentially unlimited options presented by digital art, setting and adhering to an arbitrary set of rules (outlines? scale? palette? etc.) is surprisingly liberating. once in place, the actual process of drawing is surprisingly fun, rapid, and rewarding.
Using a small resolution and a limited color pallete is a GREAT start! At least, it was for me. I did a challenge of doing 30 8x8 monocromatic sprites, this challenge simply OPENED MY MIND to what pixel art truly is. The main difference between tradicional drawing and pixel art is that in pixel art theres a unit of measurement, and by making those 8x8 monocromatic sprites it really forced me to be resourceful and think about every single pixel, especially in a 8x8 canvas wich makes more clear to see how ONE SINGLE PIXEL can change the whole piece. You don't need to go as extreme as I did, I had a good amount of experience before doing this challenge, so if you are starting now, I think THAT is what should be aiming for. Great video as always
It's nice, hearing the perspective of someone who got their start making fan edits. As someone who got theirs from pokemon fusions back in 2009, right at the peak of that fad, it's really great seeing an earnest look both how useful, and how eventually limiting, it is as an early tool for learning.
Im still at the very beginning of my journey of pixel art. I learned 3d Design many years ago and design items for Second Life. But i always was curious about Pixel Art i just could never find the motivation to really learn it. But this video damn... its so motivating! Right now i follow your mega man idea and try to make dragon ball characters in that style and its really fun! Thank you for being such an inspiration.
It may be a bit late compared to the upload date, but I myself learned by watching your videos, and using your techniques You explain everything in a thorough and easy to understand way, and it's always a blast to watch your videos, and it inspired me to pick up pixel art, and make my own channel (true it's empty for now until I begin making stuff for it, but baby steps) So thanks for inspiring me and giving me the opportunity to become a pixel artist myself 😁
Great video! It's funny that you started your pixel art journey by making characters in a megaman style, because that's exactly how i was introduced to pixel art as well. I'm still a newbie, so this video is a great foundation for me to start improving
Man you make it look so easy. I just made my first "character" yesterday and it was an amazing feeling. I will continue to run through your videos they are amazing and a great help and inspiration. thank you for making them
I do perler beads (those little beads you put on a board and melt together) and I so badly want to learn pixel art so I can start making some original stuff and this video has helped me a tremendous amount
This is really fantastic. My earliest pixel art involved having my gameboy on the desk under a light and copying the sprites pixel-by-pixel into MacPaint! X) It was painstaking, but it also taught me many of the concepts you covered here. Thanks for a great video! Definitely subscibing now. ^^
Thank you so much for this video! I've always been mesmerized by pixel art and been wanting to try my hand at it. A few hours after watching this I had a set-up I was comfortable with and my first ever sprite of Aang from ATLA. I'm so happy 😄😄
My advice for a novice would be edit sprites from other games like megaman being a perfect start, then keep doing that for years revisit old stuff and then try to coppy other styles, like terraria and Sonic but don't use the original sprites as a template but instead a reference.
I first got into spriting by editing fire emblem GBA sprites! I didnt know at the time, but it was great practice due to how small they are. They are also so fluidly animated! the more elaborate animations are pure poetry to look at. Im currently binge watching your videos and i want to thank you for your insight and advice!
As an amateur artist I'd say that not only in pixelart, but also in other kinds of art it is extremely useful to copy some other works at the beginning. One thing is learning the technicalities, using the tools - so you get the result exactly as intended (here it would be learning the software - using correct pencil, turning aliasing off, choosing small canvas etc.). Second thing is learning a lot of small details in artist' craft. I often learn this way why some obvious for me solution doesn't work and why the original artist made some decisions. In pixelart you may learn a lot about outlining, breaking outline, creating angles, limiting details, reusing colors, stretching proportions when needed, etc. Also, I have some general experience in drawing, but in terms of pixelart I learned a lot from artists who explain what and why they're doing while creating their work - Brandon James Greer was and still is a huge help and inspiration :) (also props to MarcoValeKaz) Very neat work on these Street Fighter characters! I prefer the second row, but limitng colors was a nice challenge :)
I love your channel so much !! You did an amazing job explaining all your creation and process (clear voice, easy step by step guide, and a feeling of a safe rookie space. Kinda hard to explain that last one but it feel like you happy to share without judging by the level of other artist, if that make any sense 😅)
you're really good in this, man! few pixels come alive in "your hands") it's just magic how generic template gets so much personality! love your channel and your works)
I've been trying to get into pixel art and have been doing something similar to this already although I've been taking the outline of a bald Terraria character sprite and editing that into other characters
Hi! I started pixel art as a little hobby couple of weeks ago just for some doodles and sketches, but really considered putting some proper time to it after watching a couple of your timelapses. You are a true inspiration and a very unique artist that I look up to right now. Watched literally all of your works and it was a great motivation to work something out myself and just a really feel-good relaxing thing to do. So your channel is actually a great source for beginners to just go and find out their own style. Thank you!
Tracing and edits is one of the easiest ways to build an eye for different qualities like proportion and weight and perspective and shape imo. Not the fastest, but the easiest. In other forms of art too, tracing and edits is my go-to for doing just a bit of skill building and practice
It's impressive just how quickly one can improve in art by simply trying. I think what ive enjoyed most with pixel art is that having "fixed" locations means my perfectionism can't pick a fight with my hand-eye coordination: instead, i can just kind of "paint" my way in, then remove pixels just as easily, with perfect accuracy
I remember when I first started doing Pixel Art, my "Mega-man" was Link, mostly from Link's Awakening, but also taking some liberties and incorporating elements from A Link to the Past and OG Zelda. I also drew a lot from Pokémon when starting out when it came to creature designs. I did NOT restrict my color counts, or stick to any sort of pallette, and I really wish I had now that look back on my old work. Seeing you do these Street Fighter characters makes me want to go back and polish up some of my old sprites (including a couple of street fighter ones I did way back in the beginning.)
I just started few hours and got incredible results. And, now for good I found myself watching your tutorials to level up more! Like, I'm level 10, struggling to reach 100!
Wow. I've been looking at the thumbnail for this video over and over again and didn't click it until yesterday. It was great advice! I made a sprite in MegaMan style. Then I realized I'm pretty decent at this, so I made two sprite sheets of LoZ: The Minish Cap style characters. And I subscribed of course!
Your videos inspired me to make pixel art but I didn’t start modifying existing sprites but recently I have decided to redraw the original Mario Brothers sprites, by keeping the original style intact but also modernising it
You have a true talent, not just as a pixel artist, but as a very clear and concise educator! I always enjoy how simple and easy to follow your explanations are. Color theory, perspective, design, you have an knack making those complex topics so accessible. Thanks for this one!
i second this
Yes!! Exactly 💯
No better way to put it, Pal!
I could not have said it any better. Ditto!
Yes! Thank you Brandon. Looking forward for more educating videos!!!
it was so cool to watch everyone slowly morph at the end turning into a dramatically different sprite despite hardly changing in size
The idea that a single pixel can completely alter the interpretation of a low-rez sprite and how you can view these as permutations has always been what's drawn me to this medium as a way to learn more about art. Your channel has taught me so much about colour theory and composition; I think it's incredible that you can do that with a handful of pixels!
That was a really nice breakdown of the essence of pixel art, fitting for this square guy's origin story ⏹️🐵
Hahaha the origin story; I'm just a simple man trying to pixel my way through the universe 😌 And yeah the low-res permutations thing is really the most fun, it's kinda like drawing but also puzzle-solving, so on top of being artistic it's also a satisfying exercise in the way that sudoku or tetris may be :D
@@BJGpixel I heard someone mentioned Tetris 😎
@@pro_gramer9392 The ultimate square-based game 😎
As a person that is fucking lazy but dreaming of being an pixel artist this is so motivating, the changes you applied showed, what can be achieved if you stick with the process and keep learing. Much respect.
Thanks Brandon! I teach character design at university and always manage to fit in a class or two on making pixel art. But it's always a struggle how to convey something practical in only 2 or 3 hours. This exercise is PERFECT. I'll be using it for sure. You make extremely educational content. Thank you again!
EDITED: Where the word "educational" is a the very end I had originally used the word "didactic" unknowing of the negative connotation of talking down it has in English. Foreigners mistake I'm afraid! :D
I don’t find his content to be extremely didactic at all. To me, he comes off as humble and generously facilitating his audience’s learning.
How is this didactic? Did you mean to use a different word?
@@crazyinsanepenguinNo way of knowing. Seems like a mistake _I'd_ make while looking for english words that'd fit my first language's wording.
@@crazyinsanepenguin I think he meant "didáctico" which is a fancy way to say to teach in Spanish
@@Chloroplastspectrum I'm afraid @fabiosonhandogrande1697 is right. English is not my first language, it's Spanish. And in Spain "didáctico" just means good for learning, without any negative connotation. Thank you for pointing this out to me because it seems like a mistake I could easily make in the future. Cheers!
I tried to do a thirty-day pixel art “challenge” (using only 16x16 / 1 bit), but I quickly got discouraged because with a limited screen size it was very hard to make an animal that looked correct to me.
I will try this method you used.
Thanks 😊
I tried doing the same, I think it's the animal one called septembit you're referring to. Making animals from scratch from the getgo was hell. I'm completely new to visual art as a whole, and making something with just 2 colours in such a small frame without any experience to reference it to is super hard.
Defo gonna try this as well, I think it has more potential!
@@mattreichmann8118 Agreed 👍
Good luck to you.
I think the last septembit may be a bit more accessible. Bit bigger of a canvas, few more colors and a nice sizable end result.
Challenges are a great way to learn
@@Wimpiethe3 This MM approach seems to be working for me, because I have already made three SF2 characters (EH, G, and R), with no frustration whatsoever. 👍
@@cheerwhiner7829 Thats awesome! Gaining experience, keep it up :)
Thanks Brandon! It's very important to have a chance to hear advise from a true professional!
Brandon learns from Brandon
Thanks Brandon! Always appreciate the support as well, thanks for watching! :D
It's actually kind of interesting that you use Megaman as an example because there's kind of another hidden lesson out of using Megaman as a direct sprite reference, and it's that a lot of characters in Megaman don't actually have the same silhouette as Megaman, and that what people often call "The Megaman art style" is entirely based on his sprite and his sprite alone
Like, knowing *how* Megaman's style works will go much farther than just blindly copying over his sprite
As a Mega Man fan and artist(primarily traditional and digital outside of pixel art but I work with pixels too), I find it actually kind of funny in hindsight that the Mega Man NES sprite is basically THE pixel art base. Especially since Mega Man sprites in general(from the actual games, for the whole cast) are actually more diverse than the edits since Rock is tiny even compared to other characters in that original style. Even small, more-humanoid Robot Masters, like Heat Man, don't look like him.
It's like the gamer "so retro!!!" equivalent to how, for over a decade on the internet, the whole 'Powerpuff Girls art style' in style mimic art was just turning a character into one of the Powerpuffs/Rowdyruffs, since otherwise that show just uses the exact same art style as Dexter's Laboratory with some alternate adjustments and motifs.
I think it's crazy how I also started out pixel art making Mega Man inspired sprites before I even started watching your stuff. This video was a blast from the past, really great work in coming a long way
Hi hello. I recently fell into a hyper-fixation surrounding pixel art and you are by far the best person I've seen covering the topic. And it stems from the fact that you don't exactly give tutorials (which for me are a one way ticket to not retaining anything). This exact video is a prime example. I watched it once, thought about the general idea and not the steps, decided I can do that and came back only to see how you set it up. And BAM in less than an hour I was able to make megaman sprites of Deku and Bakugo from my hero academia!
I feel absolutely ecstatic. I've never done pixel art, but this singlehandedly has lit a fire that (hopefully) won't go out soon. Thank you!
Great stuff Brandon! I think a lot of beginners out there are stuck in the "unsure where to start" phase and this really breaks it down into a simple action plan to ease them into pixel art. It's awesome to see how much you care about helping out future pixel artists!
between playing the megaman games as a kid, and reading a lot of sprite comics growing up, I've always been fascinated by pixel art.
I haven't done any pixel art in years, but I always enjoy your content.
I also started with the good ol' megaman edits, though I actually started with MM7 sprites before switching to the smaller ones. I did a whole TF2 pixel art spray pack back when that was a thing, and one of my sprites was featured in a brentalfloss video (though it was without my permision, and it wasn't even a very good sprite for that matter....)
Great video!! I love pixel art because I grew up playing Atari, Sega genesis, and Nes, so seeing how the style is still alive and interesting after all the updates the gaming world has made, it truly is a awesome genre that keeps delivering!!
Thanks! And yeah same, I got interested in it from the nostalgia for retro games, and it's fascinating to see new artists discovering and appreciating the style for other reasons as well!
The second iteration of Guile give me vibes of the River City Ransom on NES models, so much charm and personality on those. 😊
I was thinking the same! Kinda fell into that one; it's funny how well Guile fits into that style 😆
I tripped over this video after I'd already started doing this a week or two ago. I'm currently working on a "base model" sprite, just some simple colors and shading to give a vague idea to use as a starting point or stand-in for something else as I work on my game. I almost cried when I saw your spritework evolve too... it's amazing to know that not only did I start off on a pretty common path, but that it can very easily turn into something amazing if I just keep at it!
These sprite transformations really remind me of the front sprite updates through Pokemon gen 1 (Red/Green -> Red/Blue -> Yellow)
They were all from essentially the same game but each iteration added so much more character to the sprites.
That was insane ! Thanks a lot !
I loved how the volume for the kind of "balls" on chun-li's head works so much by simply adding another semi-circle behind her head ! And i loved how you recreated the facial expression of Ken on the 2nd sprite. :D
Wow interesting video! I'm not a visual artist myself, but I love pixel art, it has such a unique charm to it. Thanks for explaining everything so clearly. As a musician, I also like how 8-bit music perfectly fits with 8-bit visual in the old days especially, you don't have that 1 to 1 ratio often in art.
thank you so much for making this!! i always link your beginner playlist whenever people ask me for advice. this will def help people understand how to do pixel art as a beginner!!
Ooh thanks, much appreciated! I've added this video into that playlist also! ✌️😊
I was literally just thinking about starting my own pixel art journey, so this was perfectly timed! Your videos continue to be fascinating and inspirational, so thanks!
The retro style of 8bit to me SCREAMS video games. Its so enjoyable to put together, I work on sprites that are 8x8 and every pixel and shade it important. Im no professional or anything but i think theyre coming out pretty good on my channel. Im keeping it top-down to stay consistent, the perspective takes a little to wrap your head around lol
This is the best starting point I've found online for pixel art.
I would love more templates like this.
The limited colours versions look a lot like Neo Geo Pocket Color sprites, you nailed that look
When I transferred into another college for game development a couple of years ago, I had virtually no experience with game development whatsoever. I couldn't program and I could barely do art. The only thing I had going for me were fundamentals gathered from doing cinematography, which surprisingly helped since at least I knew how to stage and animate. I started with pixel art since for many, me included, it seemed like the easiest place to start, and ultimately lead me to this channel.
Honestly, these videos helped me a lot, since I could see the workflow and gather fundamentals for structuring pixel art, and frankly drawing on a fixed brush size and canvas made it really easy to fix details and not worry about consistency (since it was always consistent), and it's great seeing how clean my art came along compared with my other classmates. It's really something when I could examine and understand someone else's work and comfortably think to myself "yeah, I could make something like that" and actually be able to put money where my mouth was.
I hadn't been so passionate about art and animation in a long time, and although I've since used pixel art way less and moved on to 3d art and animation, I still come back to watch these videos and learn something new.
This is exactly how I imagined my progress would be a few days ago -- starting from simple then upscaling it so I can add more details until it reaches some complexity to the design.
I respect you as an artist and this video confirms my own thoughts which brings confidence in me to pursue pixel art even more.
Thanks for this, Brandon!
As someone just starting out on my pixel art journey, having you break it down so concisely and say ‘this is what I did, this is how I improved’ was so helpful. Thanks!
This (along with all your other videos) is amazing, I'm planning to finally make a game idea that's been bumping around my head for over a decade now & I'll need to be e-learning how to do pixel art.
Always been an inspiration since I found your channel.
THIS!!! THIS IS IT!!! I watched a bunch of others pixel arts already, and just felt it's not right for me and not enough information for me to practice. But this make it know where to start and want to practice and try it out after watching.
Very nice. Pixel art edits are definitely a common starting point for people, it's good to see where to go from there. It's not intimidating and you can see what you want to change, which can be easier than looking at a blank canvas and deciding what to start with. Like the famous "You're the man now, dog!" scene from Finding Forrester where he gets a pre-made text to type out, and when he feels his own words he should type them.
Well-crafted video, explanations are clear, concise and we can really see how this could be applied to any new artist's learning process. Great work!
really lovely video, you have a natural ability to explain and educate that i haven't seen before. cant wait for the next one!
you have such a positive outlook on the almost-tired megaman sprite tracing and also megaman sprite tracing criticism dichotomy
really interesting approach to developing it as a learning tool from someone who actually started there
I got to the end of this playlist far too quickly! I've been hopping around between different artists' tutorials, and your method of teaching has been, by FAR, the most helpful. Looking forward to any future content as I start my journey.
Awesome!! You've created some of the most interesting and expressive pixel art characters I have ever seen! Lotsa great posing choices too!
Keep it up; you've taught me a lot!
honestly, i have been struggling to get into visual art in general for literally years now, and I think this is partly because I had no frame of reference for what my foundation was... I think I realize now that I really need* structure to the act before I can start progressing. i want that foundation to be visualizing the subject [and each of its faces] in my head... which is hard. it took me literally years to finally break into programming [started reading Mozilla's js documentation] so i think you just need to be persistent and keep practicing as much as possible everyday. it just scares me how little progress i've made on the art front
We had a similar way of learning pixel art! I started out recreating Sonic sprites before moving on to recoloring them, and then editing them to make them unique. As time went on I slowly got better and learned the basic shapes, and as of now Im on my way to making a full on game with custom sprites. Love ur vids man and it's always cook to see another spriter tell their story!
Thank you. You are my primary inspiration for pixel art, and I remembered you saying that you started with Megaman so I actually started practicing the exact same way you demonstrate in this video. I turned Megaman into Batman, Spiderman, etc. It's nice to see that this is actually a proper way to get started.
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@@boomgoesthedynamite69 That's childish
@@TaylorTrace90 better childish than a bootlicker
@@TaylorTrace90 loving pigs is childish
@@guairefernandezamil4084 hating someone without knowing them is childish.
It might be a little thing but I loved the tidbit at 8:05 where he says he "found" this thing with the foot. That little detail shows that a large part of pixel art is very much a puzzle to be solved in a lot of ways. This video was incredibly helpful as a beginner looking for specific exercises to practice, so thank you!
THIS IS THE TUTORIAL I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR! The best tutorial on how to get into pixel art out there
Been pixelarting for years, but still found this both informative and inspiring. Great vid! Keep up the great work!
Dang! This video is really well edited and the points you make come out so clearly. Really a pleasure to watch.
Incredibly helpful video, the side by side comparison of each step was amazing to highlight the importance of each detail
Dude truthfully. This was so great. From just the art to how you're smoothly going from one topic to the next. I appreciate this.
Ive been wanting to get back to making pixel art and start from scratch again and this video gave me a great starting point again. Thanks alot my dood! Keep up the great work!
Wow these tips are actually so eye opening, its such a good tip to start with the megaman template and colors
It's kinda funny, the fact that every single video you upload always is very inspirational for me. Thanks for the content and inspirations.
having made a (sometimes agonisingly) large amount of sprite pixel art, kudos for working through the entire process in a very granular way, and also for noting that one needs to embrace limitations.... one of the most daunting things i've experienced is the question "what do i do? how do i decide what to do next?".
especially whilst facing the potentially unlimited options presented by digital art, setting and adhering to an arbitrary set of rules (outlines? scale? palette? etc.) is surprisingly liberating. once in place, the actual process of drawing is surprisingly fun, rapid, and rewarding.
Using a small resolution and a limited color pallete is a GREAT start! At least, it was for me. I did a challenge of doing 30 8x8 monocromatic sprites, this challenge simply OPENED MY MIND to what pixel art truly is. The main difference between tradicional drawing and pixel art is that in pixel art theres a unit of measurement, and by making those 8x8 monocromatic sprites it really forced me to be resourceful and think about every single pixel, especially in a 8x8 canvas wich makes more clear to see how ONE SINGLE PIXEL can change the whole piece. You don't need to go as extreme as I did, I had a good amount of experience before doing this challenge, so if you are starting now, I think THAT is what should be aiming for.
Great video as always
It's nice, hearing the perspective of someone who got their start making fan edits. As someone who got theirs from pokemon fusions back in 2009, right at the peak of that fad, it's really great seeing an earnest look both how useful, and how eventually limiting, it is as an early tool for learning.
Im still at the very beginning of my journey of pixel art. I learned 3d Design many years ago and design items for Second Life. But i always was curious about Pixel Art i just could never find the motivation to really learn it.
But this video damn... its so motivating! Right now i follow your mega man idea and try to make dragon ball characters in that style and its really fun! Thank you for being such an inspiration.
It may be a bit late compared to the upload date, but I myself learned by watching your videos, and using your techniques
You explain everything in a thorough and easy to understand way, and it's always a blast to watch your videos, and it inspired me to pick up pixel art, and make my own channel (true it's empty for now until I begin making stuff for it, but baby steps)
So thanks for inspiring me and giving me the opportunity to become a pixel artist myself 😁
This video is unreal. You not only have a talent for art, but a talent for teaching as well.
Holy crap I love these videos! The whole video format and the lesson materials to download at the end. Bravo!
Great video! It's funny that you started your pixel art journey by making characters in a megaman style, because that's exactly how i was introduced to pixel art as well. I'm still a newbie, so this video is a great foundation for me to start improving
Man you make it look so easy. I just made my first "character" yesterday and it was an amazing feeling. I will continue to run through your videos they are amazing and a great help and inspiration. thank you for making them
I do perler beads (those little beads you put on a board and melt together) and I so badly want to learn pixel art so I can start making some original stuff and this video has helped me a tremendous amount
I'm a digital painting/ vector artist learning pixel art and your videos have been amazing. Thank you.
I have no plans to create any pixel art, this came up randomly in my feed. I still watched it and enjoyed it.
Wasn’t expecting to see pixel Beatles! Nice!
I'm so glad I found you here. This is a fantastic video that doesn't just say the same as everyone else! Thank you so much!
This is really fantastic. My earliest pixel art involved having my gameboy on the desk under a light and copying the sprites pixel-by-pixel into MacPaint! X) It was painstaking, but it also taught me many of the concepts you covered here. Thanks for a great video! Definitely subscibing now. ^^
You are such an angel for making and giving this video and the template ! I feel so inspired !
Thank you so much for this video! I've always been mesmerized by pixel art and been wanting to try my hand at it. A few hours after watching this I had a set-up I was comfortable with and my first ever sprite of Aang from ATLA. I'm so happy 😄😄
My advice for a novice would be edit sprites from other games like megaman being a perfect start, then keep doing that for years revisit old stuff and then try to coppy other styles, like terraria and Sonic but don't use the original sprites as a template but instead a reference.
I first got into spriting by editing fire emblem GBA sprites! I didnt know at the time, but it was great practice due to how small they are. They are also so fluidly animated! the more elaborate animations are pure poetry to look at. Im currently binge watching your videos and i want to thank you for your insight and advice!
So charming video that is kind of tutorial. I love how you created gameboy-style sprites out of just megaman sprite and reference pictures
I'd absolutely play an 8-bit version of any of these games! Those sprites have so much character, thanks for showing the process!
As an amateur artist I'd say that not only in pixelart, but also in other kinds of art it is extremely useful to copy some other works at the beginning. One thing is learning the technicalities, using the tools - so you get the result exactly as intended (here it would be learning the software - using correct pencil, turning aliasing off, choosing small canvas etc.). Second thing is learning a lot of small details in artist' craft. I often learn this way why some obvious for me solution doesn't work and why the original artist made some decisions. In pixelart you may learn a lot about outlining, breaking outline, creating angles, limiting details, reusing colors, stretching proportions when needed, etc.
Also, I have some general experience in drawing, but in terms of pixelart I learned a lot from artists who explain what and why they're doing while creating their work - Brandon James Greer was and still is a huge help and inspiration :) (also props to MarcoValeKaz)
Very neat work on these Street Fighter characters! I prefer the second row, but limitng colors was a nice challenge :)
I love your channel so much !! You did an amazing job explaining all your creation and process (clear voice, easy step by step guide, and a feeling of a safe rookie space. Kinda hard to explain that last one but it feel like you happy to share without judging by the level of other artist, if that make any sense 😅)
you're really good in this, man! few pixels come alive in "your hands") it's just magic how generic template gets so much personality! love your channel and your works)
Those sprite went from cool to awesome to amazing!
I've been trying to get into pixel art and have been doing something similar to this already although I've been taking the outline of a bald Terraria character sprite and editing that into other characters
4:14 Cool, the 4 lads from liverpool, incredible work!
Thanks for the template man, coming from a skillful person like you really helps others!
That was really amazing man! Awesome job!
This video is so amazing and for some reason made me emotional. I really appreciate you.
Great video, thank you for your input on how to make pixel art Brandon, I've just started making a 2D-pixel platformer this month and this might help.
This was a pleasure to watch, especially the end
WOW! You’re a whole savage my dude. I’m gonna utilize all of your techniques. You’re a true educator.
this is probably the best advice i've seen for beginners getting into pixel art! very nicely done!
Hi! I started pixel art as a little hobby couple of weeks ago just for some doodles and sketches, but really considered putting some proper time to it after watching a couple of your timelapses. You are a true inspiration and a very unique artist that I look up to right now. Watched literally all of your works and it was a great motivation to work something out myself and just a really feel-good relaxing thing to do. So your channel is actually a great source for beginners to just go and find out their own style. Thank you!
Incredible. Thank you for putting this together
That’s really cool, man. I learned pixel art by clicking on squares on a grid and assigning different colors to them :)
Tracing and edits is one of the easiest ways to build an eye for different qualities like proportion and weight and perspective and shape imo. Not the fastest, but the easiest. In other forms of art too, tracing and edits is my go-to for doing just a bit of skill building and practice
It's impressive just how quickly one can improve in art by simply trying. I think what ive enjoyed most with pixel art is that having "fixed" locations means my perfectionism can't pick a fight with my hand-eye coordination: instead, i can just kind of "paint" my way in, then remove pixels just as easily, with perfect accuracy
My gosh, the change in details are so simple, yet so powerful... I hope I can learn such thing one day :']
you are awesome bro!
I remember when I first started doing Pixel Art, my "Mega-man" was Link, mostly from Link's Awakening, but also taking some liberties and incorporating elements from A Link to the Past and OG Zelda. I also drew a lot from Pokémon when starting out when it came to creature designs. I did NOT restrict my color counts, or stick to any sort of pallette, and I really wish I had now that look back on my old work. Seeing you do these Street Fighter characters makes me want to go back and polish up some of my old sprites (including a couple of street fighter ones I did way back in the beginning.)
Thank you, the video layout is amazing and the template... Really appreciate it!
I was looking for sooo long for this holy grail! thank youuuu that video helped soo much ♥
I just started few hours and got incredible results. And, now for good I found myself watching your tutorials to level up more! Like, I'm level 10, struggling to reach 100!
Wow. I've been looking at the thumbnail for this video over and over again and didn't click it until yesterday. It was great advice! I made a sprite in MegaMan style. Then I realized I'm pretty decent at this, so I made two sprite sheets of LoZ: The Minish Cap style characters.
And I subscribed of course!
Best channel ;) thanks for the Tutorials and other content!
Your videos inspired me to make pixel art but I didn’t start modifying existing sprites but recently I have decided to redraw the original Mario Brothers sprites, by keeping the original style intact but also modernising it
Incredible video, and truly inspiring. Thanks for making this!
Absolutely mind blowing content here! Thx Brandon and you got a new sub here 👌
You got it chief dont stop, develop your talents keep on improving and one day you might get to the same level as me
thats the best pixel art beginner guide i watched so far! thank you
You make it look so easy