I find it always such a surprise how a pixel art drawing I made subtly (or sometimes radically) changes to conform to the rigors of the C64 multicolor bitmap.

Other than that, I used some of the edging techniques (sharp, lost and soft edges). So there’s that too. Happy 😊 camper here!
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Searching on Flickr for Creative Commons photos of kittens I found this cute black and white one. I used it as reference for my C64 hi-res bitmap pixel art drawing.

Sometimes less color is better. Especially if the one depicted is staring into your soul.
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I didn’t get to experiment with edges. Still, I drew something I love, so that’s good.

Maybe advice from an oil painter doesn’t translate all that well to pixel art. Pixel art has more in common with decorative art (like embroidery) than with traditional art you can hang on a wall.
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Public domain now?
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I suppose the lesson to be learned here is:

Don’t look into the spiral, or you’ll go cuckoo, bananas, Dada

A quick peek is no problem, though.
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Another day, another cat drawing. This time our more blocky version of a feline fellow creature. Sketch in ibisPaint X and final drawing in Commodore 64 multicolor bitmap (160 x 200 resolution, 16 colors). If I could, I’d knit him a cozy sweater.
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I think I’m starting to grasp how to draw in C64 multicolor. You get three colors that can be used anywhere, and per 8 by 8 pixels block you get to pick another color out of 16 possible colors. Careful placement of the pixels is key. If you do it right, you can have a very colorful image
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Another day, another cat drawing for the old Commodore 64
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I reworked an older self-portrait that I made last year as a pixel art drawing, and turned it into an image on the Commodore 64. I like that the limited color palette doesn’t seem to limit me as much as it used to. It takes some effort (well, a lot of effort), but I think it was worth the time.
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Here are some of the steps I took to create a multicolor pixel art drawing of a cat.

drawn in ibisPaint X in 4 colors

traced and redrawn in Pixaki

made into C64 runnable multicolor art with MultiPaint, loaded into VICE C64

It’s a process, taking many hours to complete. I think I’m improving.

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I fired up my art app and sculpted on a canvas the size of a retro-computer’s text character (8 pixel wide and 8 pixels high). I had to struggle, because the app wanted it to look nicer than it really was.

I suppose you can already guess what it represents. You can do a lot in 64 bits of data 👨‍💻🎨

I would prefer owning a Mac, but I simply can’t rationalize the “Apple tax.” I used to be Mac or Die. A computer is more like a way to access the Internet nowadays, anyway 👨‍💻👾

It’s all very technical, this Commodore 64 multicolor mode. I made a special 2x1 grid in my iPad pixel editor to help me, but still I need to check in an actual multicolor editor if I made a mistake. Anyway, I’m improving as a C64 pixel artist, and that’s very cool 👨‍💻

Since I took the picture myself, I can copy it, I guess.

Creating something colorful that can be displayed on a Commodore 64 by loading and running a file involved a lot of (impossible to automate) creative steps. It took me around 4 hours for this simple drawing of my cat Aziz. 👨‍💻

I found an image editor that is able to draw Commodore 64 multicolor images. It can load PNG images, so I could draw on my iPad and color in this Java app on my Raspberry Pi-400. Yay!

I’m still learning, though. Also found a SID tracker to compose music on the C64, and my musical knowledge is meh.

Based on my previous sketch I made a pixel art version. To me it doesn’t look very convincing, which probably means I have to revise my process.
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I knew Ibispaint on iPad can do pixel art, sort of. However, its pixel brushes give more an impression of pixel art, than actual pixel art, more as an art meme rather than something to be displayed on a cathode ray tube. That isn’t a bad choice, especially since it allows art forms to be mixed.
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For the month of September 2023 micro∙blog organized a photo blogging challenge with daily prompts, and I adopted it for pixel art.
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1. Abstract
2. Buildup
3. Precious
4. Orange
5. Forest
6. Well
7. Panorama
8. Yonder
9. Language
10. Cycle
11. Retrospect
12. Panic
13. Glowing
14. Statue
15. Red
16. Oof!
17. Intense
18. Fabric
19. Edge
20. Disruption
21. Fall
22. Road
23. Day in the Life
24. Belt
25. Flare
26. Beverage
27. Embrace
28. Workout
29. Contrast
30. Treasure

It was mostly a fun experience. Sometimes I had to try another, less ambitious drawing, on other occasions I accepted a bad drawing for that day. I certainly did a lot of tracing to speed things up.

SepPixel for September 30, 2023, prompt: “Treasure."
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