Art

Portrait study in a more realistic style, based on this photo and in Game Boy format (160 by 144 pixels, 4 shades of green).
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A very rough work-in-progress of a Game Boy compatible pixel art portrait study. I’m struggling to get the proportions right without tracing. As with any realistic portrait, it takes time and patience, measuring, a lot of zooming, and breaks for a fresh look, as well as accepting I’m not perfect.
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When I made yet another Simpsons character from a reference, I thought it would be boring and predictable. It turned out quite challenging. I started with the bust pose, enlarged it to full body pose quadrupling the canvas, then shrank it back to Game Boy size (160 x 144 pixels). Not easy at all.
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Taking breaks from something that will take a long time to complete feels certainly wholesome. Of course, now it will take even longer, but my experience is that if I try to use brute force to complete, I will simply cast the project on a pile of things I’ll once complete (probably never).
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I used this Flickr photo as my reference to draw a Game Boy compatible pixel art portrait in the Simpsons art style. She will travel in space when she grows up.
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I used this reference from Flickr to draw in an art style of The Simpsons animated sitcom. It’s compatible with the Nintendo Game Boy handheld game console (160 by 144 pixels, 4 colors).
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I waited until I was exited enough to continue my Amsterdam cityscape (2 days). I suppose this happens when doing projects that aren’t commissioned. Still only 2 whole and 2 half house to go for the layer with the merchant houses. It’s taking a lot longer than I expected.
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Drawing from a reference on Flickr in Game Boy pixel art (160 by 144 pixels, 4 colors), with process animated GIF. Drawn in ibis Paint X, pixeled in Pixaki.
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Pixel art for the Game Boy.
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This could be cover art for a Viking war game.
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I notice within myself a slight reluctance to continue this project, which reluctance is quite normal, I believe. As long as the desire to see this through is greater than doing much of the same thing day after day, I think I’ll manage the mental resistance to continue.
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Another day, an additional house. Paying attention to details, but especially adjusting what’s in the reference to what’s already drawn, takes a huge amount of time. I went with another color of brick to add variety. It’s all imagined, so I get to pick and choose.
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You’d think we’d developed something against male pattern baldness by the 24th century
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Another house added, plus the previous house edited. Creation is mostly revising what you previously made. Anyway, it’s giving me vibes of a Dutch city in summer. Only six whole and two half houses to paint before I get to invent the background.
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Game Boy Advance pixel art with Game Boy color palette
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There are so many details to even a single house with a step gable to copy from an illustration, that it took me almost 2 hours to make it. Next, I’ll try a neck gable, then a clock gable from reference. There are other architecture styles I noticed collecting photos. It’s a slow process overall…
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It doesn’t seem much, yet it represents hours of studying Midieval merchants' townhouses for their generic building plans and reasons for their dimensions. For actually understanding their historical relevance I’d have study much more, in the order of months.
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I was thinking “cityscape”, so I got some references of Amsterdam cityscapes, basically houses alongside canals. It turned out drawing a single house was already a big thing. I had to leave out so much details. I also forgot to add a human analog for scale, though the door is perhaps good enough.
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What was I thinking?
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Games can (and should) have great artwork, but for gameplay it does nothing; players soon look past it if the game is any good. Something I learned from A Theory of Fun by Raph Koster.
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