What I like about pixel art

[SpacePaw]

As some of you may know I'm quite new to pixel art but I find learning and practicing it very exciting!
What really suprised me is that there are lots of "rules of thumb" and theory that seems more useful to me than general art theory and rules.
Not only they seem more technical and easy to follow but when you finally get it you make a really big jump forward with your style. Also traditional drawings benefit from this knowledge! How is it possible? I don't know but I love it.
And you guys?
What makes you love/like pixel art?

[Ghost]

First of all, it is the style I grew up with. The first truly "graphical" PC game I played to death was Lemmings, and I was constantly amazed by the amount of detail and fluid animations. Later adventure games were already more sophisticated (my first ones being Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, Gabriel Knight) but still had this neat, crisp, "whole" look.

Second, I like doing pixel art because of this "less is more" approach. You can make a mouth with just one pixel, and an animated one with not more than four. It's relatively easy to do "realistic" as well as cartoon characters. And consider Gobliiins, where you can actually count the pixels of each character and not believe that one could put so much edtail into the number 24.

Third, it's a style that relies on clean, sharp edges, always a boon i adventure game design where smooth, AA lines mess up your walkbehinds

And it's a style that, while sometimes generic, allows for great individuality. I consider BigBrother, Progz and Ben some of our best pixel pushers, and you can just play a game and say who did the artwork... It's signature style.

[InCreator]

This is a simple question... pixels are immortal, everlasting.

I mean, look at games. 3D games.
I cannot bear to play games that were made in 1996-2002. They look so disgusting, with ancient 3D technology, no shadows or dynamic lights, muddy textures... Like Quake. It feels really like a virtual trip through colon, with everything brown/red. Few days ago, I tried to take up Blood. Really old and fun game. I remember how I loved it. Sadly, it feels unplayable and really bad now...  :'(

I probably feel same way about current "super realistic" 3D after 20 years.

But 2D, pixels... they're as nice as they were back in 1990. And will be so after 20 years.
Especially anything isometric.

[MashPotato]

I'm still a relative newcomer to pixelling, but I really enjoy the way it forces me to focus on every detail, as every pixel become increasingly important the smaller you go.  With its limitations, it strips painting and animation to its essentials.  I really think pixelling helped me in hi-res art as well, as it made me pay more attention to what I was doing in general

[ThreeOhFour]

Pixels are great because they are square.

And it's hip to be a square.



I think pixels are great because it lets someone with no background in illustration (me) create an image that is easily modifiable every time I get it wrong (which happens a lot), because I don't have to completely redraw it each time!

Also, similar to what Mash said, you learn things about other forms of drawing when you're lining pixels up. I know I approach larger scale pictures with the approach I have learnt doing pixels.

Also you can 'build' an animation without having to completely redraw each frame, which rocks when you have little or no patience (again, me).

[Layabout]

I mean, look at games. 3D games.
I cannot bear to play games that were made in 1996-2002. They look so disgusting, with ancient 3D technology, no shadows or dynamic lights, muddy textures... Like Quake. It feels really like a virtual trip through colon, with everything brown/red. Few days ago, I tried to take up Blood. Really old and fun game. I remember how I loved it. Sadly, it feels unplayable and really bad now...  :'(

Wow, I totally disagree with this statement. Well, somewhat.

When you first loaded Quake or Tomb Raider, it really was an amazing experience. You could explore your world in a way that never was possible. Yeah, the textures were 128x128 pixels or something stupid, but compared to 3d games of past, which either used simple flat shaded polygons, or were faux 3d like Doom. Yes, the light map system it used was ugly, textures were stuck to a very limited brown/baby poo green palette, but they were still an awesome display of what was possible at the time.

This stuff had to be done as the current graphics tech used in games are just an extension of these basic methods.

Uhh..
But I love pixel art as well. I think you can be creative in both forms of video game graphics, there is no method that is better.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I have to agree that 3d technology doesn't have as much appeal as you go backwards in time compared to pixel art, but as far as the 'why I like it' question I think it's just a matter of it being the medium I chose to play with back in the day.  I never much liked drawing on paper, but when I first started playing with DPaint I found it a lot of fun just playing around with gradients and rotation and animation, and the 'fun' side of it is probably what got me interested most of all.  I could almost say the same of 3D since I was using a really old version of Caligari ages ago, but like I said earlier, ancient, jaggy 3d didn't hold the same appeal for me.  Had I started out today, I'd most likely be 3D-centric because of the sheer quantity of tools out there and fun things you can do.

[Wyz]

I think the magic of pixel art is about what you don't see. Today the resolution of games is enormous, even 2d games. There is alot more too see, but also a lot less to use your imagination. A character made up out of 50 pixels might still look fantastic because you use your imagination to smooth it out. Very detailed characters makes your imagination lazy Well thats my opinion at least, and the reason why I like it.

[TheJBurger]

I don't like to automatically label pixel art as "nostalgically better" just because it's lo-res. It's all about the amount of effort, the style, and the art direction put into it. If you are able to do that with 2D sprites and backgrounds, that's awesome. If you can do that with 3D models and environments, that's awesome too.

One sad drawback to pixel art--this is Helm's advice, and I agree with it--is that it limits your, how do I say, progress as a representational artist. By this I mean it's harder to learn subjects such as anatomy through pixels and then apply them to real-life drawings. But on the other hand, it's perfectly applicable to learn anatomy through real-life drawings and apply them to pixel art. Pixel art works well because it allows you to focus not on the details, but instead on the overall impression, IMO.

This is just restating what others have said in the past.

[InCreator]

When you first loaded Quake or Tomb Raider, it really was an amazing experience

Was, comrade. WAS.
I'm talking about aging, not memories. You didn't know it was ugly because you didn't have any better. Also, games back then had a TON of more gameplay, unlike beautiful and boring "walk in the city/forest"-simulators today.
But now...

Well, to be honest, I'm not very eager to open up some AGI game today too.

Even though I finished Gold Rush! few days ago, just for the sake of nostalgia. It took way longer to "get used" to the graphics than about 15 years ago.
Of course, those huge pixels look alot bigger on modern monitor too, since it's 14" versus 19"...

[Stupot]

I suppose the thing is that 3D technology keeps on improving all the time, so that more people can do more impressive stuff with it.  Theres only so much you can do with Pixel Art on the other hand, and its unlikely that technological improvements are going to have too much of an effect on what you can do with pixels.

And that, I think, is part of the appeal.  It's not about getting the most out of the latest technology, it's about trying to do impressive stuff within the limits of a 2D canvas.

In this day and age there are far more colours available and the pixels themselves are far smaller than they used to be.  But ironically, most Pixel artists like to limit themselves anyway.  And every day people do more and more amazing things within those limits and they are purely a result of the artist's skill and not merely a reflection of technological improvments.

[InCreator]

It's still helluva impressive to see "modern" pixels. Even despite tablets and photoshop and... Such as King's Bounty: The Legend main screen.
Even though I hated the game, I spend 10 minutes starting at this screen and admiring detail. It looks kinda stupid in browser -- lower res and JPG, but in fullscreen, quality and full resolution...

http://www.mobygames.com/images/i/48/09/678159.jpeg