if you want to learn how to design and create your own characters in
a pixel art style and stick around and I'll show you how
last year I released the game with a friend in pixel art style called pixel pirates originally
pixel art was used in game development because of the technical limitations of the engines
o-ring retro pixel art is really cool though so it definitely looked at up but that's not what this
video is about I ended up doing over 15 characters in the game and to break down that process this is
what I did I made a rough base template for all of the characters because size similarity was
important I gathered reference for the character that I was creating I worked on the silhouette of
the character first to make sure it was readable then I continued to refine the design and apply
this style that I was going for this process works for all types of 2d character design not
just picks a lot but I'm going to demonstrate this with pixel art because it's fast fun and it looks
great just like your mama anyway anyone yeah fast when run away from your bold ass head instead of
just talking about the process let's go through this step by step with a task for this I'm going
to be using a sprite which is a pixel art and animation editor on the computer it's really cheap
and it's my favorite pixel or editor but you can use anything you want because the principles still
apply there loads of programs out there for the computer mobile tablets so find the one that you
like to use and try and follow along so the task is simple make a frog step 1 the reference okay so
lady will be joining us this is lady it's the only way I can keep her quiet okay so first step here
is to gather some reference I use this program called PRF it's really cool for putting all your
reference images in one spot if I asked you to draw an alligator right now you might not know
how to draw an alligator but with reference you can do that pretty easily it's not she in
don't worry about anything like that so I'm just gonna get some images of some frogs from Google
Images and Pinterest for arcs so I'm looking for pictures which show the anatomy of the frog but
also just some interest in frogs but I like so it's a look I like this image because it
shows the way his leg and his hand work they bend anatomy style but while I'm doing this I
can see as well the type of shapes that make up frogs like this one's very long rectangular but
they got big eyes anyway right just it's just a frog who's that yeah yeah just a frog so I've
got some references here about how frogs look you can also inspire you when you come on up
with a character design I like the way these guys are kind of suspicious and this guy is
just happy simple so I think for my character the character note that I'm gonna make is a
simple frog who is just completely oblivious to everything that's going on so I need to
find some style reference some pics a lot that I think looks cool some colors that I think work
really nice so let's do that I really like the odd on bomb chicken so I'm gonna check that out
so I just got that a couple of references for style I really like the black outlines on bomb
chicken and also just how simple their shapes are I mean this chicken is just a circle but you can
tell that it's a chicken this didn't take very long to gather some references and usually I'd
go a lot more in depth and usually usually I'd go a lot more in depth in depth that's usually
I'd go a lot more in depth with this this goddess hearts a usually I'd go a lot more in depth with
with it with this usually I'd do more reference gathering and research but this should be good
enough for the task that I'm doing today so definitely don't skip this step because the
more prep you do the better your design will be especially if you have a backstory to your
character you know what makes your character unique is it evil is it good what are their
motives and why are they like that what events in their life have led them to be like that you
create a bear character if you do more prep work that's for sure step 2 silhouette like
I said I'm using a sprite for this I've got my reference open here on another monitor so I'll
use that and keep referring back to it when I'm making my designs the silhouette and shapes on
mega-important knowing about shape theory can help you push the personality of your character
I have a short video on shape theory so if you're not sure what that is you can check that out you
don't have to follow it too strictly you know you are the artist you get to choose what to do
at the end of the day so you know take that with a pinch of salt right not actually pinch pinch of
salt don't actually eat salt right let's create frog I'm just going to use a 16 pixel by 16 pixel
grid here but you can use whatever pixel size you want and I'm just going to get started with some
silhouettes so my character is a simple frog who is completely oblivious to everything that's going
on I think I'll try just a big circle first of all for my reference images I can see here that
the frogs eyes sort of pop out if I can show the eyes popping out of the silhouette it might be
instantly recognizable that that's a frog so I'm going to try and do that with this first design
so does does that look like a frog I'm not sure let's keep working on some try
pushing the eyes a bit that's a little better that's starting to look more like a frog but
I don't want it to be too skinny or spindly I want it to be a very basic shape but also
a sort of recognizable as a frog I think this first one was probably too basic of a
shape and the second one is too complex of a shape so let's try and in between
that's better we're getting more I can't we just want to try and keep it simple it's it
seems like a very fat sort of frog but I kind of like this idea of something very simple now that
I'm happy with the silhouette it's time to move on to the next step step 3 style this is the fun
part you can continue to refine the silhouette by putting it into the style that you want definitely
helps to have a style guide for this points or a gathering reference or doing previous designs
will really help you out I like to create my own color palettes but if you don't know how
to do that or you don't know the color theory behind it you can use this website called low
spec which is really really good for it so let's just find a color palette that I like
and use that for the Frog I'm going to go with this picot err palette because the picot it is
awesome and these color got wrap now and these colors are really nice and vibrant so I'm just
gonna start developing this and let's see how it goes I think I'll give them the green as a
base give them this outline gonna simplify the silhouette a bit because it just looks a bit too
complicated still at the bottom so I don't think the silhouette is perfect here but I'm gonna try
and refine that a little bit more with the outline and the design so let's try to fix it green
frogs are pretty difficult on me I'm trying to give them legs without them looking without them
destroying the shape too much so if I added some legs I've changed the silhouette a bit
the silhouette doesn't really look like a frog anymore but I'm not too worried about
that because the color helps define these parts that we did have in the original silhouette so
let's keep going so I'll keep that as a base for now it looks a little bit traumatized I do
like this this is cool it might be getting a bit too complicated but you can see from that
one his silhouette actually looks a bit more like a frog but I do I do just like how simple
this guy is I'm just going to keep developing this sort of simple shape style just because I
think it looks cool just keep pushing the pixels around and try and find something that you like
zooming out definitely helps with pics a lot as well so try and do that often or have a some sort
of preview window where you can see it from a zoomed out point of view okay I kind of like
that I think this is what I'm gonna go with I think this is the Frog that I needed it looks
going to silly with a nose push his body down I like that I like pushing his body down just a
little bit there I think that's my final frog my final little picks a lot character I like
that now we have it our own pixel art frog you can use this as a template for style to create
other characters here's a bunch of frogs a bunch of frogs in the same style for a game that never
got made so let me know what you think in the comments and if you made a frog make sure you
send it to me at sul tunes on social media I also have a disco channel you can join if
you want to share your work or if you have any questions I'll be on there there'll be
links in the description for all of that stuff please come and join me in the discord because
I've got no friends thanks for watching I'll see you in the next video right let's crack on