this was my first ever pixel art from eight years ago i made it again recently to see
how much i improved and also challenged you to do the same so stick around to see the results
in 2013 i made this fan art for popular game last of us if you've never played it it's a
post-apocalyptic world with weird zombie creep things and this is my take on joel and ellie the
main characters so what could be improved about it well the size is huge you can usually fit in
a lot more detail than you think so if in doubt go smaller the poses are also really static and
boring they're kind of like mannequins just standing there and holding items there's no
real emotion there at all i can't quite tell if joel is confused or if he really needs the
toilet we've got random brow lines the hands on no idea what's going on here the lip is really
interesting at this point my knowledge of pixel art techniques was basically non-existent we
have doubles and jaggies everywhere just randomly with absolutely no intention behind them at all if
you're confused with any art terms or techniques that i mentioned check out this video which covers
everything you need to know the colors are really desaturated which is typically good for realism
but in this style it just looks boring there is some directional lighting but it's randomly
applied and it doesn't really give a sense of 3d form in the characters and this rim light
is inconsistent and makes it look even more flat i always took the background so i avoided doing them
at all cost so i guess i just put in some random squares and what's going on with this random glow
you know what at this point why not nice random glow it's not good but it's not bad for a first
attempt either at this point i was mainly doing digit law like this so it's basically just digital
art in a smaller canvas size with the pixel brush but let's see how i would make this piece today
i find it really helpful to find reference or inspiration like this from the start so at least
have some direction going forward i really love the strong pores the simple limited colours and
the broken outlines i wanted to try a medium pixel art character size for this something just a touch
smaller than the rio sprite it can be hard to know which canvas size to use so don't worry if you're
unsure you can always rescale it if you need to so to start with i sketch out the characters i
really wanted them to have strong poses where they're sort of back to back holding weapons and
fighting off these zombie creep things i use these red flow lines to plan at the balance of the poses
it seems really simple but the floor lines help to imagine the characters in dynamic positions
from there i sketch out the basic construction of joel's body first placing the head shoulder line
and hip line in a more static or robotic pose the shoulder and hip line will be straight on
almost parallel to each other so if you want a more dynamic pose all you really have to do is
offset the shoulder and hip line twisting the body a little as i've done here and then putting some
lines for his legs and arms the large mask for the rib cage just trying to keep the proportions
realistic without being too rigid about it i try to balance out the pose by placing one leg
further apart creating a strong triangle shape i basically just did the same thing for ellie
except i imagined more of a back view and also holding a rifle i'm not actually sure how useful
a long range rifle might be in a close range encounter but maybe they were caught off guard
i tried a couple different poses for joel and i ended up with this one where he's not looking over
his shoulder but he's more concerned with what's in front of him i first thought this might appear
a little bit less protective than the initial one but i actually prefer it because it feels
more trusting it's as if they know they have each other's backs doing anatomy studies and figure
drawing will help you out a lot when you're trying to draw poses from your imagination it
really helps to understand how the body functions and moves realistically so you can adjust it or
emphasize it in a stylistic way it also helps to gather reference if you struggle to draw pauses
too to make things even easier you can even take a picture of yourself in the same pose both of
these stacks are super charming but the rework has so much life beautiful composition and style
nice work and we have a huge improvement here from 2019 to 2021 i love the pores and lighting
started blocking in the silhouettes which was pretty simple because i'd already figured out
the poses just had to tweak it here and there trying to make the proportions semi-realistic
i didn't draw on a perspective grid though because well i'm an idiot it really helps
to draw characters in perspective so they have a sense of form and depth
i should have made a perspective good
from this point it was time to block in some basic character features and shapes i started refining
joel first i keep checking the reference to make sure i get the defining features of the character
right at this point i'm focusing more on the line work trying to identify those doubles and juggies
that might be out of place or to spot where i can use them to help define the pose as i mentioned in
my pixel art tutorial i find it helpful to use these techniques intentionally and consistently
because it can make a massive difference when you move just one pixel i was playing around with the
color on the shirt and adding in a little satchel but i was getting quite frustrated with joel so i
moved on to ellie for a little bit of a break when i'm having difficulties with one section i find it
always helps to just jump onto another part like i did here sometimes it flows easier and gets
you back into the groove the process for ellie was exactly the same too i didn't think it was
necessary to do a complete outline for everything i used big block sections to help define areas too
like the pants and the back it only took me about seven minutes to do this but that little wind gave
me enough motivation to go back and fix joel and then start adding the colours there is so
much technical improvement here i like the shapes the shading the detail and the intentional double
outline we also have a super cool improvement here great lightning with the effects and the fire
if you've seen my other videos you know i like to start with values but this time i decided to just
jump straight in with the colors it's a lot easier to do this when you have set colors to work from
from the character reference and i wanted to keep the colors quite simple and limited like the ryu
reference from earlier so i felt more comfortable just balancing the value and the color at the
same time i try to keep the flat colors around a mid-tone so i can easily add in some shadows
and highlights without being too light or dark overall once the flat colors are in i just started
refining starting with jewel first or to add in one shadow color for each section like the shirt
and pants imagine that there was a light source from the top right hand area that actually seems
to be my go-to light source and maybe i should work on diversifying that in the future but with
shading it does help to define a light source first i also started to colour and break some
of the outlines inspired by the ryu sprite from earlier i just thought that looked a lot better
than the clay and black outline and i struggled with the face a little bit getting the expression
details and likeness into that small size was quite difficult especially with the beard covering
up a lot of the area where i wanted to define the nose i ended up simplifying it a lot and defining
features using a little bit of shadow i think it turned out okay in the end let me know what you
think i kept checking the values and the value contrast wasn't as strong as i liked so i pushed
the back leg and arm into even more shadow using a couple more colours to show that value change
both of these little characters are really charming but the new one has some clear
improvements in applying different textures and there's only a month between them nice work
definitely a more organic look in the new version with nice lighting and water effects too excellent
job once i was happy with joel i tackled ellie in exactly the same way but it was a lot easier
this time i had a basic value range and structure figured out from doing joel so it was a lot easier
to pick colors this time around i didn't use a set palette for this either i felt quite comfortable
just picking colors from the color picker which is actually quite nice because i remember how
much i struggled with picking colors in the past you know making these videos and sharing some tips
with you guys really helps reinforce the concepts for me as well i'm still learning too and it's
great to share that journey with you to finish it off i added in some details to the backpack and
rifle tweaking it and pushing that value contrast just a little bit further this is so much better
the posing the colors the background i always took the background so i avoided doing them at
all costs i avoided doing them i avoided doing that i avoided okay okay let's do a background
there's nothing wrong with having no backgrounds or even dare i see it random squares but i knew
deep down that i had to make one for this piece so i started off with a rough sketch the pose is
getting across this idea that they're back to back fighting off some zombie creeps but i got
this idea to push it even further what if they were tired and ambushed caught off guard with a
long range weapon in hand aha it's all starting to make sense now so imagine them in this alleyway or
run down city street with a lot of zombie creeps surrounding them and also some zombie creeps in
the foreground to add some depth this framing has a really nice effect too because it squeezes
the characters into the center which makes the composition feel quite uneasy and claustrophobic
as imagine the real situation might actually feel you manage to get so much character into this the
palette is fresh with a cute animation too it really feels like a finished piece the style has
developed a lot here but the character is as funky as ever nice work so when i was blocking this in
with rough values i try to keep the dark values in the foreground and increase the values as it
recedes into the city this is to kind of give it some sort of atmospheric perspective in the city
but also to make the foreground really really dark and grind i actually used a perspective grid for
this bit the one point perspective grid helps to draw the background objects and buildings towards
the same vanishing point giving it that sense of depth as i said i should have really planned the
perspective from the start so that the background and the characters were designed using the same
perspective but i just had to eyeball it here because i'm an idiot but it kind of turned out
okay so i'm not mad about it i put the horizon line around the shoulder level of the characters
so it's like we're looking down on the scene that kind of helps make them look a little bit more
trapped too after adding some details and refining some values i added a color overlay on top just to
start with i knew the value structure wasn't that strong especially between the characters
and the background because i didn't plan on doing a background initially so to help the characters
stand out i tried to make sure the background colours were desaturated so the characters
saturated colours would really stand out contrast from this point on i'm basically just tweaking and
refining the background adding in some color variation and thinking about what might be in
the scene smashed windows abandoned buildings foliage and grass growing through the tormach
a broken down car a military checkpoint with barbed wire and of course the extra zombie creeps
i even added some more texture in the trees by using single pixels and little patterns to help
replicate the leaves i do have a more in-depth video on my basic background process so if
you're interested check it out here's the final piece let me know what you think in the comments
uh sorry i forgot one thing... random glow!
as you've seen throughout the video i wasn't the only one who took part in reworking some
old art here's some more entries from our awesome community thanks so much for taking part everyone
hope this inspires some of you out there to just keep going and keep learning no matter
where you are in your odd journey thanks for watching everyone i really appreciate
the support you can check out some more videos here and i'll see you in the next one goodbye