I finished my pixel princess yesterday. I'm happy with her, but perplexed and maybe a little annoyed with the pixel art community in general. But before I get into that, here she is:
Isn't she nice? Very dreamy. I'd love to be more proud of myself, but it's kind of hard when people are telling you that this and that are wrong, and totally trying to beat your brain in with some new ideas.
Now, I'm no young chick. Well, ok, I'm young, but what I'm trying to get at is that I've been on the pixel scene forever. My first piece of pixel art was done about eight years ago. Eight years!! Back then, most of these other pixel artists weren't even into the double digits!! I'm freakin' ancient!!! So it drives me totally up a WALL when these young whipper snappers tell me that there's this new rule in pixel art. Let me explain.
Ok. Pixel art is dealing with pixels, which means appreciating the pixels. Which means being able to see them. I know, you're probably not following me at all. When working with digital images, you get to know what AA means. That's Anti-aliasing for you nontechies out there, and in case you don't know what that means, it's basically a smoothing out of curved lines in images.
So what does that have to do with pixel art, you might ask? I would love to tell you absolutely nothing, because pixel art is about the pixels and SEEING the pixels! But I guess I'm wrong. Pixel artists have begun anti-aliasing their pieces like crazy so that you can no longer see the pixels. Let me show you an example. Take a look at
this piece by Bisque at PixelJoint.
It's beautiful, isn't it? I love this piece, but can you see the pixels? No, for the most part, you can't. If it wasn't for the pixely clouds, I would say that it's possible this piece wasn't even pixel art at all. But it is. I won't make that accusation.
I'm ranting without rhyme or reason. But stick with me; I'm getting there.
Ok, so I start the pixel princess and take her over to the Work in Progress forums at PixelJoint, telling everyone that she's almost done (the image I posted on the forum is the one in the post before this one) and that all I really want to know is if she needs wings or whatnot. Almost the first comment I got was that she "really really needs AA," and my jaw drops. It's such a small piece. Why does she need to blend in? I want her to POP! I want you to SEE the details!! The pixels I laid down one at a time!!! I don't want everything to just fade into everything else.
But I crack and AA her. Because I'm in a community of pixel artists that don't want the pixels to show. And it baffles me. And saddens me.
My life is art. When I dream, my imagination flies, and when I wake, it tells its story on paper with pen. And when I look out a window, I see endless possibilities. But I have a long way to go still on my journey through the clouds of art and imagination. Won't you join me?
