Pixel Art - Definition and Forms

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There have been many opinions over time about what exactly pixel art is and what is considered high quality in this specific form of art. In this article I will be explaining my views and opinions about this, in an attempt to make it clear what quality standards I like to see and what I consider to be good or not good.

Let’s consider what types of pixel art exist.

 

The deviantArt Pixel Art:

Firstly and most importantly let’s take a look at what categories dA offers for us to submit to:

    -          Isometric

    -          Non isometric

So straight away we see that this is a very basic categorization and it should be perfectly fine as dA is not just about pixel art. This version of categorization though may have caused some confusion as to what is or is not pixel art.

Let’s try to see what forms of “Pixel Art” exist in general and what categorizations there are.

 

The “Schools” of Pixel Art:

What is pixel art, really?

To really find that out we need to know what a pixel is first.

The word pixel comes from the words picture and element. It is the smallest editable element in an image and the actual use of the word can go back to the 1970s when the word was used for the first time in this sense by Frederic C. Billingsley to describe the picture elements of video images from space probes to the Moon and Mars.

 

“So… Pixel Art is the art of joining each individual pixel, one by one, into an image that looks clean-cut and clear."

 

The term pixel art was first published by Adele Goldberg and Robert Flegal of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1982, but gained the most popularity through Arcade games, lasting from the late 1970s up until the mid 1990s. After that, in the game industry at least, 3D graphics to hold and pixel art became lest exciting to gamers, even though the art is still needed for computers (e.g. desktop icons, favicons etc), mobile phones, industrial machines and other uses.

Pixel art is now a form of expression. A way to show that an artist can master the tiny pixel and show how perfect an image can be without dithering, auto-gradients etc.

 

An interesting conversation

Recently I had a very good conversation with *Pix3M here on deviantART, after I had posted my Pixcellent Artists article. I was asked what I consider to be high quality and that I should offer my opinion on this to be more public. I totally agree!

 *Pix3M offered me their opinion on this matter and what I liked most were the categories they broke pixel art down to, considering what approach we have to it these days. Here is a quick quote from *Pix3M explaining what each category is. 

Modern-retro is the abstract sort of pixel art that tried to capture a retro look  ....  is a pretty established style today with the recent 8-bit craze.”
[…]
New-school is interesting and probably the rarest kind of pixel artist. ... New-school artists will treat pixel art not as art with pixels, but art with pixel clusters, clusters being blobs of colors created where the same colors touch. 
[…]
“The deviantArt kind of pixel artist, to sum it up, likes to make art made of pixels....”


 My definitions

Modern Retro:

Retro Pixel Art, is the very beginning of the form of art. The prelude to all of existing pixels anywhere. However basic it is, it is in its purest form and it can really get you thinking how something so simple can also be so perfect. Modern Retro is the attempt that artists make to capture the essence of or even mimic the style of the past. It is widely used and also loved by fans of this form of art because, it too, is simple but perfect. Here are some examples of the modern retro style, and what I consider to be quality samples of this form:

Linked Seasons - Link by World-of-NoeL Plumber Jumper by JoeGPcom RPG sprite swordsman by tiny-mint

 

New School:

This is a good name for this category so I will keep it myself. The new school of pixel artists have indeed a neater approach to it. They tend to use pixels to their advantage to create clean-cut images that don’t necessarily show they are made of pixels. Whether they are animated or not, these images should look very clean, no rough edges, good use of colours and consistent quality all over the image. Here are some examples of what I consider to be quality samples of this form:

Into Werewolf RETURNS by AbyssWolf iso castle by fool That's no Moon... by Badassbill :thumb256150304:

Pixel Drawings:

Now this is the category that my friend previously called the “deviantArt” category. And although I should really call it that, as it was on dA that these pixel drawings showed up, I will call them Pixel Drawings as that is what they basically are.

In this form of pixel art, the artists who create this, tend to just draw as if they would with any normal brush and use all tools available in the program they are using.  That way, instead of building the piece pixel-by-pixel, it’s created with more of a shortcut. Also in many cases the result image can look very much like a detailed New School piece, but with a closer look you can tell there was use of gradients, dithering, anti-aliasing, feathering etc. I must say that these ways are a shortcut to creating pixel art, but I myself would call that more of a Hybrid pixel art form and not purely pixel art. Now this is the part I show you examples, but because I do not want to offend anyone I will use one of my older pieces to show you what this is:

:thumb289787002:

This is an avatar I created just over a year ago, before I actually started taking pixel art seriously.

If you take a closer look you will see what I mean


There I used opacity tools, a bit of a gradient on the face and more.

Now in this case it is not very noticeable because it is a small piece, but when the image gets larger it tends to show more and more.


How I perceive high quality pixel pieces:

First of all let’s define what we mean when we say high quality.

High quality means that the piece has little to none flaws, if it has animation it’s smooth and consistent (no abrupt motions or ends of movement). It has to conform to what pixel art is and it has to show that every single pixel on the image belongs and is in the right place. With transparent pieces there are to be no hard edges or “black spots” around the image showing that it has been somehow resized or there were tools used that are not common with pixel art. There should be no blurry bits as well. Pixel art=no blur. No dithering, opacity tools, no feathering.

 

As for my judging when it comes to groups, especially with PixcellentArtists, I follow the above guidelines and I also tend to avoid any unfinished pieces or anything that doesn’t look finished at least.

 

Now, it is a totally different thing when I search for artists to feature on the Pixcellent News article I issue. For that, I look for the best pieces in the deviantArt Pixel art category, that specific week and I promote them, especially if the artist hasn’t received much feedback for it. So I am a bit more lenient and I also tend to feature Pixel drawings at times if they are good enough.


In general I believe that judging quality is something subjective no matter how objective you try to be, you just have to stick to the basics and make sure that at least what you are looking at is actually Pixel Art.

 

Conclusion:

So to sum up some of the key features of this article:

    -          Pixel Art, is the art of joining each individual pixel, one by one, into an image that looks clean-cut and clear. There are three categories, in my opinion, of pixel art and each one of them is defined but the feel of it and the type of tools that are used.

    -          High quality, is something that is mostly subjective, but can be defined by a few basic elements that make pixel art recognizable as a form of art.

Thank you to all for reading and if you have any questions you are welcome to either reply or note me.

 


References:
Wikipedia - What is a Pixel
Wikipedia - Pixel Art
Also a big big thank you to *Pix3M for inspiring me to write this article.

 

 

 

 

 



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UszatyArbuz's avatar
Hey there, I guess you won't remember because this article was written like 10000 years ago but :laughing: I wanted to ask abut the part:

"The word pixel comes from the words picture and element. It is the smallest editable element in an image and the actual use of the word can go back to the 1970s when the word was used for the first time in this sense by Frederic C. Billingsley to describe the picture elements of video images from space probes to the Moon and Mars. "

Is it actually taken directly from the Wikipedia article you're linking to in the References, or have you found more in-depth source? (I see Wiki links to a book, but I'm not sure maybe it is available somewhere on online library or something...)