there are lots of secrets or techniques that not many people know about when they first start pixel up people see pixel art as seemingly easier than other mediums and in some ways it's true it's easier to pick up and control but the limitations like the smaller canvas size in my opinion makes it equally as challenging to master as any other art form lots of people think that art is all about talent and is like some sort of magic ability that some people just have and others don't but really all you need is some motivation practice and knowledge and you're on your way [Music] recently there have been a lot of videos like this on youtube but i wanted to give my own take on it and see what i can add or go further in depth with in this video i'll be unpicking a lot of hidden tips that you might not have known especially if you're just starting pixel art which will hopefully elevate your skill level and make your art even better than already is firstly a disclaimer pixel art has transcended its early roots of just being used as game art it's no longer just an art style but an entirely new medium so as with any art form these tips don't apply everywhere and will change based on context however they're very effective building blocks to use in most cases and i'll be talking about exceptions as i'm showing you each tip so let's begin our journey of pixel art knowledge tip 1 workflow i recommend you all to find a workflow which best suits you in pixlr there are lots of different ways people rough out and then finalize their artworks when drawing anything especially if it's an organic such as a character or an environment i tend to create a very free sketch i'll rough out the silhouette using blobs and geometric shapes this gives me an idea of the shape language i want to use to convey the character's personality or the environment's atmosphere i do a small explanation of shape language in my second pixel art tutorial here but to summarize shape language is what you convey through the form and simple geometry of any art giving it personality square or rectangular framework is typically representative of a strong sturdy or reliable character like the knife and shovel knight triangular shapes signify dangerous or deceptive an example being basically just spikes in all games and circles are around to imply soft safe or friendly designs like kirby another very popular method of roughing out a design is through construction lines although a sketch is very general and free construction lines provide a simple way to work out anatomy proportions posing and structure very easily with characters this often means stickman and you typically build up the real shape using the lines as a base these techniques can change depending on what you're drawing too so for example it's not likely that you'd use construction lines for an organic background as you're less looking for specific placement and more for an atmosphere or composition for the whole piece in that situation so don't think you have to stick to one technique but no matter what technique you use remember to work on the whole piece in stages at a time i don't recommend doing a character segment by segment in detail because then the entire design as a whole may turn out inconsistent especially with lighting so make sure to have a base and add color and shading gradually rather than focusing on completing smaller segments at a time tip two line work even if you're using a style without any outline the shape of your art is still governed by basic lines when drawing lines in pixel art there are two main techniques that you should avoid using inconsistently these being doubles and jaggies so what are they firstly doubles are probably the easiest to spot and are basically when pixels overlap each other in a line for example if you're trying to do a curve but there are doubles the arc might look a bit off as it gives the impression of the segments on the line moving up and across and up again rather than being a smooth curve removing these is simple and looks much cleaner in general once you do there are also many art styles where artists purposefully use doubles or layered pixels for an outline to show emphasis it's all about consistency and placement because if you mix both doubles and non-doubles into a single outline it ends up looking messy here are some exceptions though notice how when you're trying to portray a sharp object you want to add a double to show that it's almost like a corner piece or a sharp point this sword or even something more subtle like the hair on this character are examples of this you just have to know the right situations to use them okay now on to jaggies jagis are something i see a lot more than doubles and is when the line is uneven or jagged hence the name here you can see the segments of this line are unbalanced and they almost look random lengths going one two one one two one two one and so on in an artwork this would look jagged so what you want to do is smooth it out a good way of doing this is to either go back and try and modify the line into something more even for example i've seen styles where they leave gaps in the line to still give the look of a gradual slant without keeping to the restriction of pixel art angles as much or you could start with an already even line and draw shapes from that notice how removing the jags and doubles from this piece makes the entire image look so much cleaner and nicer to look at especially when zoomed out but just to emphasize again they aren't always bad you just have to know how to intentionally use them to create the effect you want tip three shading and color i know this is a very query topic for people not only starting out but even at an intermediate level and i also used to have a lot of trouble with shading before but once you understand the basics it becomes really simple so pixel art shading is really the same as any other art form as light will still work in the same way the only real difference is the number of colors or tones in an image being smaller in pixel art using a gradient isn't as common and takes away from what's unique about pixel art being its clean readable style i'd recommend only around one to two shadow tones one midtone and one highlight tone but it definitely differs depending on context the size of the artwork and the style you can see that adding too many tones here makes it look a bit messy because pixel art tends to shade or block out colors in what's known as clusters singular seemingly random pixels on their own or singular colors will cause noise so removing them like this will help readability although there'll be varying degrees of light hitting the object everywhere let's say if the light source was here there are some things which you should consider to be more important for pixlr to get the shape across clearly firstly the most obvious one is the cast shadow on the ground to show that the object is on the floor and that the environment is reacting to its presence next you should understand how the light travels so less and less light rays hit the object the further you go from a source this creates a specular highlight which is close to a shade of white right where the most light hits then the further out you go there's a slightly less intense highlight a mid-tone then the terminator which is just the blur will transition to the shadow then the core shadow i normally start with the midtone then go from there as it's easiest to start with looking at the base color rather than starting from the lightest or darkest now for a flatter example here's a cube you can see that due to the limited color palettes each side only has one or almost two colors making it consistent and readable one thing to remember is to not do pillow shading pillow shading created from a technique known as banding which are tones wrapping around the object is when you don't consider the form of the object but think of it as the light source itself leading to a very flat or odd looking shape it seems simple not to do but i still sometimes fall into this trap especially with more complex geometries in shape for these more complex objects you really just have to try and think about them as if they were in real life or in a 3d plane which might seem hard to do but a lot of it does just come down to common sense i'm just being more observant in real life finally i want to talk about hue shifting the shifting refers to how shades and tints not only change in brightness but also in hue based on the environment color of the object and the intensity of the highlight or shadow here's an example you can see that the teddy bear on the left looks nicer than the one on the right because in a way it's more vibrant typically you'd shift highlights to a warmer color so towards red or yellow and shift shadows towards a blue or purple whichever's closer using this will make your colors look less murky and overall make your art look more vivid or aesthetic some circumstances that you'd want to limit hue shifting however is when you're going for a much more dramatic or serious tone in this case murkier and desaturated colors work effectively conveying the realism or tension this character is someone you might find in a small adventure game whereas this character might be in a dramatic story based action game to reiterate it's all about the intent and learning how to utilize techniques depending on context tip 4 anti-aliasing anti-aliasing is a technique that not many beginners know about but it's basically the process of using singular or orphan pixels on the edges of an object or at the border between two different tones to make an object blend together better it has a lot of other uses too such as giving the impression of a small shadow or being used to show a terminator which is meant to give a softer or more blurry impression when you take a picture in real life and zoom in you can see a similar effect where on the edges of the object is almost the color transitioning the object to the environment as your camera blends it slightly it's quite easy to overdo this or do too little and leave it looking a bit strange so it takes a while to get used to where it should and shouldn't be placed here you can see that too little still makes the object appear flat but too much makes it fuzzy or unclear similarly to the banding effect i was talking about typically the color used to anti-alias will be very similar to the core color but slightly darker however in some situations like this character i've purposefully used a lighter color to convey slight highlights another technique similar to anti-aliasing in style is dithering where you use a hatch-like pattern to give the impression of a color in between the two being used in the pattern and the value of the color seemingly changes depending on how much of each color you use you can test this by moving away from your device slightly and seeing the color of this small square seems to change even though it's just your eyes tricking you to see a flat toned color rather than seeing two separate colors it's a method to both add texture and extra tones to your art without having to introduce new colors use it sparingly however as it can lead to decreased readability if it's everywhere it depends on the style again tip 5 draw what you want to draw this is less technique based but it's more general advice when practicing what you're weak in for example i really wanted to get better at drawing poses so i took some references and tried to analyze proportions anatomy and how the body shape is conveyed in different styles i would try and use a reference and basically copy out poses geometrically in monochromatic color palettes and it really did seem to help i didn't just copy the image pixel for pixel but by stealing art i liked i was able to break down in my head how it worked and over time i got better the same advice applies for literally anything you want to get better at drawing clouds making games feel good to play composing music and when you use what you like to improve your skill especially in art it's very easy to see progression this also links to the fact that even if you find something difficult practice using what you like to draw it yes i want to draw anatomy but there was no reason for me to practice american cartoon style proportions if i didn't want to learn that i drew mainly from real life references and japanese manga characters because that's the area or aspects of art that i wanted to improve tackle certain techniques or studies in your own time and try not to rush try and pace yourself otherwise you'll be left feeling unmotivated also just because you use the reference doesn't mean that you shouldn't be proud of it copy art is a skill in its own right and if you get used to drawing from reference and start doing it less and less each time eventually you'll be able to draw from imagination or memory by putting the skills you learnt from copy art into your original art the only rule is to not directly copy from other people and claim it as your plagiarism really isn't that great so those are my top tips for creating and improving your pixel art skills i hope you learned something and if you did here's a small exercise try taking some art that you're proud of and applying some of the new things you learned to it just to see how it could be improved or even just modified slightly as you now have a different perspective on your own art critiquing your own art as well as being proud of what you make are both extremely important in progression having a balance of both is really the way you can improve and become a better artist anyway i'll see you all in another video or in the discord server until then bye you