I'm teaching myself how to do pixel art, and I got Aseprite, which is fantastic.

[tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place]

I'm teaching myself how to do pixel art, and I got Aseprite, which is fantastic. So I have the game already - and it's fun - but it's using art I "borrowed". But that gives the right idea on size - I can go a few pixels over or under.

Anyway, I was sketching away in Aseprite and I got a reasonable looking outline (no shading yet), and I thought "how far off am I on size?"

My sketch: 96x40 pixels.
Game needs: 24x12

Derp. You have no pixels. None. It's all in the shading. Make every one count.

[tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place]

Before vs after. I actually find it so much easier at this smaller size. You just don't have that many choices!

[tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place]

And yes - the only thing cooler than a swing-wing aircraft is one where BOTH wings swing. The Tomtomcatcat F28!

[tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place]

Watching a modern bunch of pixel art tutorials, and they spend a lot of time talking about outlines, and then shading inside. Which works fine at the big size. But at the small size you simply don't have space for both outlines and shading - pick one or the other!

[tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place]

Revised size, did shading and reorg, and exported it to the game! Note - all assets APART from the main ship are *ahem* borrowed from other games. Placeholders only!

The shading is too subtle in the game context, and I want a nicer exhaust.

For ~15 hours from "total art newb" - it's acceptable :-)

#Mega68k

[tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place]

Wow that got very mangled by Masto. Looks like I'll need to tweak my GIF writer to output bigger.

[tomf@mastodon.gamedev.place]

Did a quick upscaling exporter, but now I'm really limited on time because I smack into the Mastodon 16MB upload limit. And then it MPEGs the shit out of it anyway. Sigh.