Some Random Pixel Art

I’ve spent the last few weeks sorting myself out and stretching pixels.

I found that I had been increasingly frustrated with the programming aspect of SDCOM and needed to break out of, what felt like, a prison of logic.

And, even so, I still felt pressured to make “progress” on the game, drawing sprites. Lately, I’ve been trying to return to the joy of creation. Practicing the pixel art process, without the need to “produce” anything, has been exactly what I needed. So, to encourage this, I’m going to share some of my work. Amateurish as it is, without a doubt. But we all have to start somewhere.

I had also bought a new book, Make Your Own Pixel Art (Jennifer Dawe and Matthew Humphries). Aside from being unbelievably cute (the cat character throughout the book) it has been a useful reminder the last week. I started at square 1 (primitive shapes and shading). Confirming the cuteness of the book, my daughter relieved me of the book the day after it arrived, “because it has a kitty on it, so it is mine.” So, we share the book now.

Today, I combined cones and cylinders to create three open sallet helmets illuminated under a bulb.

I also found and worked on an old, empty whisky bottle from a few months ago.

I also put together a little slide on the three versions of clouds that I’ve gone through so far with SDCOM. A picture of progress to lift my spirits. As you can probably see, I split up the middle cloud into constituent components, roughly, low-altitude dark clouds and high-altitude light clouds (think, stratus).

I can see why so many people recommend looking at your previous work. I am not a professional and I certainly haven’t invested as much time in this particular craft, compared to computer programming. But, I do feel a certain satisfaction.

I’ll be devoting more time to pixels in the coming weeks – both for SDCOM and for myself.

Note: all of this was made in Aseprite.