Pixel artists work with tiny dots, pixels. Created with the use of raster graphics software, images are edited on the pixel level. Pixel art is a style of digital art,

A pixel is one tiny dot of colour in an image. Pixel art then, is an image created with tiny dots. It is also known as low resolution art and 8-bit art.

An image created in the pixel art style is not usually smooth, like a photographed image. If you look, you can see the dots, especially around the edges. Comic books were created with pixel images so you could see the dots if you looked closely at those too.

Once an image is evolved past the pixel art level it gets that polished, finished look and (to me) it isn't really pixel art any more. It becomes computer generated or digital art. The main difference between pixel art and any other computer or digitally created art is that the artist works with the pixels, the actual dots which make up the image.

The word pixelated, in reference to an image, means the image is blurry - the pixels have too much space between them and have likely been stretched out due to the image being enlarged past the point it was meant to be shown.

Pixel art is coming back into use because it isn't a bandwidth hog the way a photograph or an image with higher resolution would be. So, for mobile technology, pixel art allows more images to be used because they take up less space in the memory and can be sent much faster too.

Pixel Art is Used for...

• favicons
• avatars
• video games
• low res images
• dollz (pixel dolls)
• and various other new, retro and developing places

Techniques for Making Pixel Art Pixelating, making pixel art, starts with a simple line drawing, sketch or outline. Colours are added to give the image shape, shading and definition.

Start with the basic lines of the image you want to create, this is called the line art. Line art can be original or created from a scan of another drawing. The artist creates their own version of the original drawing, with their own vision and concept.

Dithering and hand-made anti-aliasing are used to bring different shades and colours into the art. Dithering basically uses two colours and by varying the density you can get different tones of colour. Anti-aliasing will smooth curves and changes between colours.

Saving the finished art

Pixel art is saved to either a PNG file or a GIF. JPG images files will make the pixel art appear mussed or messy.

Pixel Art is also Useful for Creating FavIcons You have likely noticed a favicon before, maybe you didn't know it had an official name. A favicon is the short form of, favourite icon. Favicons are used as tiny images which your web browser picks up and shows on the address bar next to the URL for the site you are visiting.

You may even have created your own favicon at one time. I have. The trick is creating something which will still look like something recognizable within the limits of the size the image has to be.

Pixel Dolls. net

I like the idea. You could pick so many odd and unusual dingbat fonts. Something relevant to the book itself even. Then use them as text art, making book art. Not technically ASCII art because of the font, not being monospaced. Traditional Book Design Using Dingbat Fonts

Pixel art is an image drawn pixel-by-pixel using a limited color palette and usually primitive/ retro computer graphics tools. Microsoft Paint, a bitmap graphics editor, was a popular software for creating 2D sprites and pixel art.

Pixel art was used for 2D games. It's retro now. 3D games took over and there weren't many 2D games around any more. MapleStory is one which still uses pixel art. Computer icons and those tiny smiley graphics are also still created using pixel art.

Like ASCII art, pixel art is coming back into usefulness now that there are small applications (for mobile phones, etc.) which need simple art files and illustrations.

I've begun making pixel art. Mine is the size of icons. I've used some of my pixel art as favicons for my sites. It's interesting to work with pixels. You need a fairly steady hand, or the patience to go back over your work and remove tiny extra lines and pixels one by one. Most of the graphics software make it easy to fill in your colour. To make the more detailed art you need to pay attention to shadowing and light. Just as photographers and other graphic artists do.

Pixel art used for icons is much simpler. It's flat. You can use two basic colours, one for the outline to give it shape inside the basic outline and the other just to give it colour rather than leaving it black and white.

I'd like to do the more detailed pixel art. I've been working my way up to it. I'm not ready to share my early creations, they are a bit discouraging while I figure out the process and how to make the light and shadows work to give my graphics depth rather than just looking odd and warped.

My Pixel Art Avatars in Real Size and Enlarged