Pixel art and whatnot.

[Punch]

Rant: I just wanted to know how to draw pixel art. I'm trying to do an adventure game for the NES (and for the PCE later when I get the hangs of 6502) but f*ck I can't draw for shit. I just wanted to do character portraits that are somewhat like Bionic Commando like:



But everytime I try to do a portrait I fail miserably. Any ideas to help a shitty programmer be able to do shitty art?

[Punch]

Well I haven't managed to do even a basic shape so here's a duck with a grenade instead:

[HailingTheThings]

He looks friendly.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Instead of worrying about the shapes of sprites & tiles, you could maybe go uber-retro(bear with me) & do block type characters, but then have tons of parallax(relatively speaking) & colors.  I'm not sure how else to explain it.  It's like it's an Atari 2600 game, if it were on crack.  Proabably would be easier to do wavy effects & such as well.  That might be an interesting way to go.

[sunteam_paul]

See: VVVVVV

[Black Tiger]

Rant: I just wanted to know how to draw pixel art. I'm trying to do an adventure game for the NES (and for the PCE later when I get the hangs of 6502) but f*ck I can't draw for shit. I just wanted to do character portraits that are somewhat like Bionic Commando like:



But everytime I try to do a portrait I fail miserably. Any ideas to help a shitty programmer be able to do shitty art?

If you want to do portraits that have hand-drawn artwork, then you should start working on your drawing skills. Anyone can learn to draw well enough to do portraits like those. The actual pixel work is a minor detail in comparison.

You could do what the artist in Bionic Commando did for many of the portraits and just create a base model and then re-work it for different faces.

For developing pixel art skills in general, you should start examining examples that excel in different ways, figure out details that make them work and try reworking them in different ways. Try taking some shaded colorful 16-bit graphics and rework them into proper NES (not just NES-like) graphics.

With all of this, you'll get better and better just from going through the motions.

[Nando]

Ask your self if you really want to do art. Otherwise it will become a chore and you won't enjoy the learning process.

[esteban]

Ask your self if you really want to do art. Otherwise it will become a chore and you won't enjoy the learning process.

Truth.

I think you should worry less about having perfect art now and use "placeholders" (of your own design), to allow you to create your game, fine-tune it, etc.

A playable, nicely done game is INSPIRING and you will find a way to make it look prettier in the future. You have a better chance of recruiting talent if your project is "done" (sans aesthetic upgrade).

The toughest part, of course, will be drawing cute ducks.

[Gredler]

Punch, I'd love to help with the project and learn more about creating art for the TG-16. PM me if you are interested!