I have something a bit different to share this month: PIXEL ART! This art style was originally born out of technical necessity but has since become a staple of indie games. Small independent teams and game dev hobbyists have made use of pixel art for decades. It’s a great way to honor classic games while also saving time and resources (at least in some cases). I’ve worked on many pixel art projects throughout the years, and it’s become an art style that I genuinely love.

While the level of detail can vary, there’s a certain amount of abstraction that I adore with this style. If you stick with a lower resolution, you can really keep things loose and focus on simple graphic shapes. This also why I really enjoy animating pixel art as well. At a lower resolution, I can block out animations really fast and iterate quickly. My friends and I used to compete in 48 hour game jams where creating art and animations at a quick pace was essential. Pixel art was perfect for that environment.

That being said, pixel art can be created at all sorts of resolutions and levels of detail. Lower resolutions can be reminiscent of the 8 bit and 16 bit era of games, and that’s great. But it’s not limited to that! There are plenty of artists out there creating highly detailed pixel art that pushes the limits of the medium. While I’ve been sticking to simpler, lower resolution work, I’d love to explore the art form further.

But enough rambling! I recently put together a little sampler video, showcasing some character animation and environment art I created. It loops too!

This scene consists almost entirely of animation cycles, which I originally created to use in a fun little mobile game. I’ve written a bit about creating animation cycles in my posts about animating idles, walks, and runs. Cycles are a staple in game animation since a player’s input will affect a character’s action. Press forward? Queue the walking animation! Press A? Queue up the jump animation! Depending on the complexity of the game, the list of animations needed for any particular character can be long.

But outside of player input, these same animation cycles can also be used narratively for cut-scenes. You’ll notice this in many of the old classic games. When the animation budget is limited, sometimes you need to use existing animations to tell a story. Having a character walking down a hallway while giving a monologue? Why create a whole new animation for that when your walk-cycle already exists? This was my approach with the above scene. I wanted to I tell a simple little story just using the cycles I already had made. It’s nothing special, but there’s a narrative there. And that’s just using cycles….and maybe a bit of animation layering for the character’s eyes.

Here are some compilations of the cycles I used for each character:

Thanks for taking a look!

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