Pixel art

I wondered what would be a good animation for my Pixoo64 LED cloud display? I guess a cute cat on a floating cloud. Maybe this is the direction I should be going. It should also appeal to a younger audience.

I made two pixel animations, one to note that I have reached level 6 (whatever that means) in Divoom’s pixel editor, another to celebrate the occasion.

Based on yesterday’s find that more is better, I created a new canvas in #pixquare to give me room to sketch eight portraits in ibisPaint X. I used the CC Search Portal to find creative commons portrait photos, of which I added eight to my reference window. Now the only thing left is… sketch.

Being broke scars a person mentally for life. I know this from personal experience, having been without money several times, living above my means.

I solved the problem with fuzzy imported 64 x 64 pixel images into the Divoom pixel editor, by chopping up the original animation into four separate 32 x 32 animated GIFs, and per frame move each 32 x 32 layer into its correct position. It’s a real hack, and rather bothersome.

I drew Spyro the dragon, an old Playstation game character, in 32 x 32 pixels, which wasn’t easy. I both limited the color palette and animation, so I could do it within a day. Drawn in Pixaki on iPad, imported into Divoom’s pixel editor, and exported as a frame hanging on a wall.

I did an image search on a Yorkshire Terrier as pixel art to find a better color scheme, after applying that, it actually looks like the dog.

I’m always amazed how different a 32 x 32 pixel art piece looks from its reference. The color choice might not be the best, but I’m sticking with this pastel-colored palette, which probably demands a more stylistic approach than the realism I’m aiming for.

I found out that the Divoom pixel editor prefers 32 x 32 images for import. The 64 x 64 image import leads to fuzzy pixels. Of course, for animation this isn’t a big deal, since sprites are often smaller than 32 x 32 pixels. And I can import 32 x 32 as 64 x 64 pixels if I don’t mind the fuzzies.

I’m learning how to get a color palette from an image in Divoom’s pixel editor. So I created an image in Pixquare and imported that, so I could pick and add colors, and created this post’s animation from that. Since it took so long, I guess I’ll stick with this palette for a while.

I made the animation from scratch in Divoom’s pixel editor (the frame is from the app itself, of which on the display on top the tv set I changed 2021 in 2025). It took a really long time for such a simple 64 x 64 pixel animation.

When in Rome, do like Romans do, IOW, embrace the blurriness of the app that seems to have been slapped together to sell a product, judging by how poorly its features are implemented. Still, I imported my pixel art and retouched it a bit in Divoom’s pixel editor.

Happy New Year, everyone! 🎆

When you don’t succeed right away, try, try, and try again until you do.

You can’t win them all, it seems. This one went awry by a bad choice of colors.

I imported my previous pixel art portrait into the Divoom pixel editor and did some touch-ups before I exported it to my photo library.

I made a 64 x 64 pixel art portrait. For a longer description, see this blog post.

Here’s what I could come up with today, a duck in a pond drawn as 64 x 64 pixel art in Divoom’s pixel art editor.

There’s no better way to learn than to just jump in and start drawing and animating, I guess. Shown is a simple animation loop and a color gradient through the 16 colors of the Sweetie-16 color palette.

This 64 x 64 “selfie” pixel art portrait took much, much longer than it needed to. I drew an outline in Pixquare, and replicated that in the Divoom pixel editor, after which I colored the sketch. The image is a screenshot, framed in Procreate, because Divoom’s export filter is no good.

I reworked a pixel art piece I did earlier this year in Pixaki, imported it via the photo library into Divoom’s pixel art editor, took a screenshot inside the editor, and added a frame around it in Procreate. Of course, it is expected that I draw in Divoom’s app, which I find clumsy.