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  • January 18, 2024 4:48pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Thirteen years ago I drew from life with chalk. The art is no longer around, since chalk washes away with the next shower of rain.

    Chalk bike and the real bike it was copied from

  • January 18, 2024 3:48pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Cats

    Art

    Programming

    Pixel art

    Games

    As Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the eighties have taught us, cats can without most clothes, except the most essential, like a hat or a cane.
    πŸŽ¨πŸ±πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»πŸ•ΉοΈπŸ‘Ύ

    Commodore 64 multi-color bitmap painting of an antromorphized cat behind a pile of clothes
  • January 17, 2024 7:06pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Art

    Sometimes limitation breeds creativity; usually frustration, though. The latter is often left out, rationalizing it as “part of the process.”

    Drawn, but not copied πŸ˜‡, from a photo. Six-color palette based on C64 colors. Drawn in ibisPaint X in roughly 5 hours, including a failed attempt.
    🎨

    illustration of a baby
  • January 17, 2024 11:26am
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Cats

    Art

    While sketching this kitten I wondered how I could do away with all those lines. So I tried to eliminate as much as I dared. I’m sure more could be removed still. However, now the result was pretty “bland.” I suppose color has to do the brunt of the work, and there is too little of that.
    🎨🐱

    drawing of stylized kitten with as few lines as possible Animated GIF of drawing process
  • January 16, 2024 6:29pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Art

    Programming

    Pixel art

    Games

    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!
    πŸŽ¨πŸ‘½πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»πŸ•ΉοΈπŸ‘Ύ

    Commodore 64 multipaint drawing of an anime version of Rick Deccard
  • January 16, 2024 3:12pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    I was listening to a podcast about Blade Runner (1982), which inspired me to draw Rick Deckard, as played by Harrison Ford. Took me 1Β½ hours.

    drawing in anime style of Rick Deckard
  • January 16, 2024 11:59am
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Cats

    Art

    Programming

    Pixel art

    Games

    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.
    πŸŽ¨πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»πŸ‘ΎπŸ•ΉοΈπŸ±πŸ˜ˆ

    Commodore 64 hi-res pixel art drawing of a black and white kitten
  • January 15, 2024 4:58pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Cats

    Art

    Programming

    Pixel art

    Games

    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.
    πŸŽ¨πŸ±πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»πŸ•ΉοΈπŸ‘Ύ

    Commodore 64 multipaint illustration of two kittens, one sniffing a flower
  • January 15, 2024 11:07am
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Art

    Sometimes (read: often) I get distracted by an interesting bit of art-making fundamentals, try to apply it, then get totally side-stepped by the intracies of drawing from a cute photo, forgetting what I wanted to try out in the first place. The creative process never seems to go in a straight line.
    🎨

    rough sketch in blue line of two kittens
  • January 14, 2024 7:22pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Art

    Programming

    Pixel art

    Games

    Public domain now?
    πŸŽ¨πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»πŸ•ΉοΈπŸ‘Ύ

    Commodore 64 multicolor illustration of a cartoon mouse holding a piece of cheese and a drink animated GIF of drawing process
  • January 14, 2024 9:17am
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Art

    It is said all dogs go to the Good Place.

    Drawn in ibisPaint X on 9th gen iPad with first gen Apple Pencil.
    🐢🎨

    Illustration of a winged dog with halo on green surface
  • January 13, 2024 7:21pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    For this piece of pixel art I called upon my knowledge of the Period Table of Elements for illustrating the Pixel Dailies prompt for January 12, 2024, “Golden.”

    Commodore 64 multicolor illustration, showing an elderly mansplaining the prompt Golden
  • January 13, 2024 10:46am
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Art

    Programming

    Pixel art

    Games

    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.
    πŸŽ¨πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»πŸ•ΉοΈπŸ‘Ύ

    Commodore 64 hires bitmap image showing a spiral and a confused artist
  • January 12, 2024 5:02pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Cats

    Art

    Programming

    Pixel art

    Games

    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.
    πŸ±πŸŽ¨πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»πŸ•ΉοΈπŸ‘Ύ

    illustration of a stylized cat with chunk in blocked letters written underneath Commodore 64 multicolor bitmap image of a chunky cat illustration
  • January 12, 2024 10:53am
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    It’s always good to have a firm mental picture of one’s (artistic) process, as to not get bogged down by the details. I’ve updated the C64 multicolor illustration I did yesterday, and separated it into 4 “colors”:

    • background color 0 (white)
    • ditto 1 (black)
    • ditto 2 (red)
    • other colors
    updated Commodore 64 multicolor illustration of Boys Will Be Boys animated GIF showing the color layers of the illustration
  • January 12, 2024 10:13am
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    I had a few lock up with my iPad lately. Now it’s even in recovery mode, trying to restore from iCloud…

    Update: I’m back on the iPad. Pfew!

  • January 11, 2024 4:15pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Art

    Programming

    Pixel art

    Games

    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
    πŸŽ¨πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»πŸ•ΉοΈπŸ‘Ύ

    cheeky multicolor illustration on the Commodore 64, stating that boys will be boys
  • January 11, 2024 11:56am
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Just for kicks, I tried to color a random doodle I made. I had to redraw some of it to be able to work around the limitations of multicolor bitmap graphics on the Commodore 64. Other than that, and that it takes a lot of time, it went well.

    silly and random multicolor image on the Commodore 64
  • January 10, 2024 2:55pm
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Art

    Programming

    Pixel art

    Games

    Another day, another cat drawing for the old Commodore 64
    😻 🎨 πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’» πŸ•ΉοΈ πŸ‘Ύ

    Commodore 64 multicolor drawing of a blue cat on a red background
  • January 10, 2024 1:23am
    Rene van Belzen Rene van Belzen

    Art

    Programming

    Pixel art

    Games

    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.
    🎨 πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’» πŸ•ΉοΈ πŸ‘Ύ

    Commodore 64 multicolor selfie
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