For the hue shifting conversation, I thought I'd chime in. The reason we see things with a more yellowish highlight hue and a more bluish shadow hue has to do with the light source in question, which is usually either the sun (a white-ish yellow-ish light) or indoor lighting (also usually yellow), and the complimentary color OF yellow is blue, which is why the hue shift looks that way in most cases. In reality is the best approach is to think of your light source. If it's white, you use white highlight and blacks for shadows, if it's red light, highlight with reddish and shade with greenish, etc etc. It helps to just look at a color wheel and pick a color as your light source color, then the opposing color as your shadow hue. It's not perfect but it's akin to how light works in reality due to how light is often absorbed.
iirc, the blue that we see outdoors irl is also partially due to the ambient lighting from the sky, so the ambient lighting is also probably something to consider
anyone who comes across this, this is unintentional misinformation. the shadow isn't blue (or purple because that's the complimentary color) because the light source is yellow. put simply, shadows can be any color. it's partly affected by reflected light from the primary light source, other light sources, and by the environment; ie grass, sidewalk etc. depending on the color, the primary light source bullies the color of the affected surface to be more like it, it can't influence the surface to become what it isn't. the reason anything is a certain color is either because it is its natural color or something is making it that way. the blue shadows are caused by environmental influences, in this case, the sky. that's not to say that this is the right way to do art, but it is more true to reality than the previous explanation. but that doesn't mean you can't apply that to your art, it's just less accurate. hue shifting will always look better, even if you use a flawed understanding of it.
@@digis_monkey_king Oh interesting. I wasn't aware of those details. They do make sense. It's why I usually don't apply the direct shadow colo with hue shifts. I tend to use it additively, which might be more effective at getting the result?
I was watching the video like "Hey this is really helpful, I wonder how many views this has" and then I saw the 84 views. Underrated is an understatement at this point.
I knew all of these already! Yay! You're still a much better artist than me though. Doesn't matter if it's pixel art or not, you're just a good artist.
The hue shifting point was the highlight of the video for me, that made some things click in my brain to understand what’s going on with a lot of color palettes and not having the same hue on different brightness levels of the same color; my brain always attributed it to “it looks cool/nice”, never to the color of the light source
I think the algorithm picked up your video, congrats! These tips are a lot better than what I'm used to from these type of video's; less obvious while they make a lot of sense once you explain what you mean!
Thanks! I'm glad I'm able to offer something different. And yeah I'm definitely grateful for how well this video has done. I hope some future pixel art videos I have planned can be as helpful as this one.
One place I disagree with you is the too many colours part. Although I understand your point and I agree it is a good rule of thumb, I think that one can still use many colours and create a full gradient while making good pixelart. I think the best example of this is the art in dead cells.
A really nice video! While I'm not really a beginner, I still found this helpful for going over some of the basics again. One thing I wanted to comment on that I don't thing anyone else has brought up yet in regards to the hue shifting and shadow colours is that it's not just a trick of the contrast- outdoor shadows are often actually slightly blue! I think you almost had it, too, in your video when you turned up the saturation. While you're right in terms of contrast and opposing hues making the shadows look more blue, turning up the saturation only makes so much of a difference because there is blue in the shadows to emphasize. Basically, a good way to think of it is like in layers- different light sources layer over each other and combine to give the values and colours that we see. On a sunny day with little cloud, there's two light sources to consider: the Sun, our direct (yellow-ish) light source, and the sky itself! The sky scatters blue light around in every direction during the day, much weaker than the direct sun, but still enough to add some light in shadows. Without our light-scattering atmosphere, shadows would be pitch black. The direct sunlight is just so much brighter that it blocks out those blue tones where it hits, leaving just the shadows to show it off. Since we're so used to seeing warm, yellowish light and cool, blueish shadows, that becomes pretty natural to us to use in art. And it looks nice even when it technically wouldn't make sense. But if we want to experiment with different colours and have it make visual sense? Then we just need to play around with the setting a little bit. Indoors, we generally have a more white lightbulb as a direct light source, but then more light bounces off the walls and furniture around us to add some indirect light. That indirect light- that would generally tint the shadows- would typically reflect the colours of what it bounces off of. In a room with red walls, the shadows could be tinted red. A greenhouse? Maybe it'd be a little green, if it was fully indoors. Basically, the tint of the shadows often reflects the environment, and keeping this consistent can be one way to add a sense of depth to an image, as well as helping with cohesion. This is partially why hue shifting works out as a technique- even in a solitary object, tinted shadows give the impression of a broader environment for that object to be in, something our brains pick up even if we don't fully understand it. Once again, great video, and I really loved seeing that updated sprite at the end! It really shows how far you've come, super inspiring!
hey man, good tips here! you have the right ideas. i have a bit of hopefully constructive critique: your "fancy sphere" at 6:28 is just not a good example. it does not look spherical at all. it looks more like a magnifying glass lens. you have highlights in the shadow area, shadows in the mid-tones. your other example sprites look nice though, and the tree sprite update is great! keep working at it!
For the sphere I used in that example, I initally made for a magic orb/crystal ball, so I think that's why. Looking back you're completely right though, should have excluded that example. Glad you liked the video!
One thing i like about this video is that a lot of this is applicable to texturing for 3D assets, and in fact, is applicable to art in general. Useful video, even though I'll never do pixel art!
That's a completely fair point. It's something I generally recommend avoiding to make sprites easier to draw and improve color contrast, but of course all of these rules could be bypassed depending on what style someone is trying to achieve. I think that deconstruction of these rules can be a very unique aspect of art as a whole.
I like the pillow hand only so far as it's a glove which is reaching out for a glowing orb that's lighting it lol. All about the goals. Good video though, the hat edits especially were very satisfying to see change.
Great, concise and very relatable - nice job. Totally agree on the common use (mistake) of drawing in outlines (for all art) as opposed to forms though I do find that pixel art is different from normal art in that outlines are an accepted use case and I find personally that a lot of the time, adding in the outline after the fact really changes the look and often causes me a lot of grief. The other thing I found that applies to all digital art as it's so easy to do is ALWAYS flip the canvas! I can't believe it took me so long to learn that and it improved all my work 1000%. Thanks again, that was a great heads up for new starters. Edit: When I mentioned flipping the canvas, I meant to say (for anyone not familiar) that it resets your perception and avoids getting further and further down the rabbit hole of bad composistion etc. Bonus tip which again I wish I learnt earlier is take breaks, lots of breaks, for the same reason. Mistakes literally smack you in the face after a break 👍
I like to think of hue shifting in terms of opposite colors. A yellow light casts a blue shadow, and likewise, if you have a blue light, then I would make the shadows more yellow. The shadow color always lacks the color of the highlight. If you take white (every color) and subtract yellow (light source color), you end up with blue for your shadows. It sounds a little complicated, but visualizing it by messing around with RGB sliders helps a lot. Another commenter made a great point too, which is using the complimentary color wheel to see which colors are opposite to your light source. Using that is a quick and easy way of picking the right colors. Of course with all art, rules can be broken, so you could always experiment with different colors if you find one light/shadow combination that looks interesting. The hue shifting I outlined is to replicate how light behaves in real life.
The Lorax will always like your trees no matter what they look like. I'm doing my own pixel art for RPG Maker MZ, and its going take forever to finish.
It all seems so simple when someone else does it. But then I place a few pixels and it looks like absolute garbo. I think I often start too small, it's a problem I also have with regular drawings, I always get really tiny, but the disadvantage of pixels is that the hard limit turns it into mush. Can't draw a dog with one color and three pixels
Recognizing why you've made that mistake is a great step! There's a few tips I can recommend to help ensure that your sprite is the right size and proportion: - It's usually best to stick with a standard sprite size for a frame of reference (and making sure you fill out the entire area with the sprite). 16x16, 24x24, and 32x32 are what I use the most, but you can also make great pixel art with plenty of other sizes (I recomend keeping it in multiples of 8). And of course you can stretch that square out into a rectangle (16x32 for example). - If you aren't already, I highly recommend looking at both real world references and other people's pixel art. This is always something I do even if I think that I know what a sprite is supposed to look like in my head. - You can always try tracing a scaled down photo to get a more solid grasp on shapes of different objects. Then as you improve, you can start drawing your own shapes. I hope those tips are of use to you. Like with anything, pixel art takes practice. With time, you'll definitely improve!
@@BBGDev Thank you. I wasn't expecting a detailed reply, if at anything all, but thanks! One thing I did is I started doodling. Just create a relatively big canvas and fill it with many little doodles in all different sized rectangles. You'll kinda end up with a quilt of many different sprites and images, but it kinda helps putting off the pressure of creating something recognisable or worthwhile right then and there, and instead just practice a new little thing in each little or big box. I kept it to 2 colors for now, so I can practice silhouette and shape, proportion and contrasted shadows. I'll tag you if I share it
Hey, sorry for the late reply. Reddit is where I've put up the most art, but most of the work I do is for commissions, and I don't usually post them. I do need to get better about sharing my art (hopefully I'll have a portfolio site or page setup soon). Until then the best places to check are reddit and Fiverr (in the order examples): www.reddit.com/user/ChipPlays www.fiverr.com/chipplays/create-pixel-art-sprites-for-your-game Some of that art is pretty old, but again, hope to share some newer pieces soon!
Hey, glad you found the video helpful! I would generally always stick to one perspective, so in an isometric game, everything will be isometric (including the characters). Obviously there can be expections to that rule if absolutely necessary, but I would try to be as consistent as possible.
Honestly I prefer the non-hue shifted version, but I think thats purely a stylistic choice honestly, the non-huge shifted version feels more akin to a early snes game for example which I like, but this is totally opinion based.
For the hue shifting conversation, I thought I'd chime in.
The reason we see things with a more yellowish highlight hue and a more bluish shadow hue has to do with the light source in question, which is usually either the sun (a white-ish yellow-ish light) or indoor lighting (also usually yellow), and the complimentary color OF yellow is blue, which is why the hue shift looks that way in most cases.
In reality is the best approach is to think of your light source. If it's white, you use white highlight and blacks for shadows, if it's red light, highlight with reddish and shade with greenish, etc etc. It helps to just look at a color wheel and pick a color as your light source color, then the opposing color as your shadow hue.
It's not perfect but it's akin to how light works in reality due to how light is often absorbed.
Hey, thanks for your comprehensive explanation. I think tackling hue shifting using complimentary colors is a great way to approach it.
iirc, the blue that we see outdoors irl is also partially due to the ambient lighting from the sky, so the ambient lighting is also probably something to consider
anyone who comes across this,
this is unintentional misinformation. the shadow isn't blue (or purple because that's the complimentary color) because the light source is yellow. put simply, shadows can be any color. it's partly affected by reflected light from the primary light source, other light sources, and by the environment; ie grass, sidewalk etc.
depending on the color, the primary light source bullies the color of the affected surface to be more like it, it can't influence the surface to become what it isn't. the reason anything is a certain color is either because it is its natural color or something is making it that way. the blue shadows are caused by environmental influences, in this case, the sky.
that's not to say that this is the right way to do art, but it is more true to reality than the previous explanation. but that doesn't mean you can't apply that to your art, it's just less accurate. hue shifting will always look better, even if you use a flawed understanding of it.
@@digis_monkey_king Oh interesting. I wasn't aware of those details. They do make sense. It's why I usually don't apply the direct shadow colo with hue shifts. I tend to use it additively, which might be more effective at getting the result?
surprised a video of this quality dosent have more views
I was watching the video like
"Hey this is really helpful, I wonder how many views this has"
and then I saw the 84 views.
Underrated is an understatement at this point.
I heard about some of these mistakes before, but no one explained them as clear as you, thank you!
I knew all of these already! Yay! You're still a much better artist than me though. Doesn't matter if it's pixel art or not, you're just a good artist.
Thanks, I appreciate the compliment!
The hue shifting point was the highlight of the video for me, that made some things click in my brain to understand what’s going on with a lot of color palettes and not having the same hue on different brightness levels of the same color; my brain always attributed it to “it looks cool/nice”, never to the color of the light source
I think the algorithm picked up your video, congrats! These tips are a lot better than what I'm used to from these type of video's; less obvious while they make a lot of sense once you explain what you mean!
Thanks! I'm glad I'm able to offer something different. And yeah I'm definitely grateful for how well this video has done. I hope some future pixel art videos I have planned can be as helpful as this one.
One place I disagree with you is the too many colours part. Although I understand your point and I agree it is a good rule of thumb, I think that one can still use many colours and create a full gradient while making good pixelart. I think the best example of this is the art in dead cells.
A really nice video! While I'm not really a beginner, I still found this helpful for going over some of the basics again. One thing I wanted to comment on that I don't thing anyone else has brought up yet in regards to the hue shifting and shadow colours is that it's not just a trick of the contrast- outdoor shadows are often actually slightly blue! I think you almost had it, too, in your video when you turned up the saturation. While you're right in terms of contrast and opposing hues making the shadows look more blue, turning up the saturation only makes so much of a difference because there is blue in the shadows to emphasize.
Basically, a good way to think of it is like in layers- different light sources layer over each other and combine to give the values and colours that we see. On a sunny day with little cloud, there's two light sources to consider: the Sun, our direct (yellow-ish) light source, and the sky itself! The sky scatters blue light around in every direction during the day, much weaker than the direct sun, but still enough to add some light in shadows. Without our light-scattering atmosphere, shadows would be pitch black. The direct sunlight is just so much brighter that it blocks out those blue tones where it hits, leaving just the shadows to show it off.
Since we're so used to seeing warm, yellowish light and cool, blueish shadows, that becomes pretty natural to us to use in art. And it looks nice even when it technically wouldn't make sense. But if we want to experiment with different colours and have it make visual sense? Then we just need to play around with the setting a little bit. Indoors, we generally have a more white lightbulb as a direct light source, but then more light bounces off the walls and furniture around us to add some indirect light. That indirect light- that would generally tint the shadows- would typically reflect the colours of what it bounces off of. In a room with red walls, the shadows could be tinted red. A greenhouse? Maybe it'd be a little green, if it was fully indoors. Basically, the tint of the shadows often reflects the environment, and keeping this consistent can be one way to add a sense of depth to an image, as well as helping with cohesion. This is partially why hue shifting works out as a technique- even in a solitary object, tinted shadows give the impression of a broader environment for that object to be in, something our brains pick up even if we don't fully understand it.
Once again, great video, and I really loved seeing that updated sprite at the end! It really shows how far you've come, super inspiring!
hey man, good tips here! you have the right ideas. i have a bit of hopefully constructive critique:
your "fancy sphere" at 6:28 is just not a good example. it does not look spherical at all. it looks more like a magnifying glass lens. you have highlights in the shadow area, shadows in the mid-tones. your other example sprites look nice though, and the tree sprite update is great! keep working at it!
For the sphere I used in that example, I initally made for a magic orb/crystal ball, so I think that's why. Looking back you're completely right though, should have excluded that example. Glad you liked the video!
One thing i like about this video is that a lot of this is applicable to texturing for 3D assets, and in fact, is applicable to art in general. Useful video, even though I'll never do pixel art!
I probably won't work with pixel art but i think this information would be useful for my other art.
11:03 I feel like that's entirely subjective and will depend on the art style one's going for.
That's a completely fair point. It's something I generally recommend avoiding to make sprites easier to draw and improve color contrast, but of course all of these rules could be bypassed depending on what style someone is trying to achieve. I think that deconstruction of these rules can be a very unique aspect of art as a whole.
I'm proud to say I knew all these little tricks, nevertheless it was a good reminder and you explained it so well. Great video!
It would be an improvement if you toggle the before and after or put them next to each other so that the difference is directly visible.
Thanks for the feedback, I'll be sure to do that in the future!
man that contect 😍 you are a king in this field
that was very educational
super surprised by the lack of views wtf great advice
This video was awesome! Thanks for the helpful information. Please keep making videos.
Really well done! I'd love to see some more bite sized videos like this on your pixel art approach :D
It is hilarious to me how many of these mistakes are made in runescape icons.
I like the pillow hand only so far as it's a glove which is reaching out for a glowing orb that's lighting it lol. All about the goals.
Good video though, the hat edits especially were very satisfying to see change.
this was great!! thank you very much C:
Hey Jesse! I liked how you explained it, subscribing! 🙂
Really glad to find ur channel :)
Great, concise and very relatable - nice job. Totally agree on the common use (mistake) of drawing in outlines (for all art) as opposed to forms though I do find that pixel art is different from normal art in that outlines are an accepted use case and I find personally that a lot of the time, adding in the outline after the fact really changes the look and often causes me a lot of grief. The other thing I found that applies to all digital art as it's so easy to do is ALWAYS flip the canvas! I can't believe it took me so long to learn that and it improved all my work 1000%. Thanks again, that was a great heads up for new starters. Edit: When I mentioned flipping the canvas, I meant to say (for anyone not familiar) that it resets your perception and avoids getting further and further down the rabbit hole of bad composistion etc. Bonus tip which again I wish I learnt earlier is take breaks, lots of breaks, for the same reason. Mistakes literally smack you in the face after a break 👍
Thank you for the kind words! I also appreciate you sharing your own tips, it's always great to learn about what helps others.
Thank's a lot for this wonderful video! It really helped me a ton with understanding pixel art!
hey man, this video was really well made and helps a lot. hope others find you as well 💪
Nice video, I would love to see more videos about tips for pixel art, or tutorials
Thanks! I hope to make more in the future (maybe one on animation).
About hue shifting: is it right to think of it as the color of the light? If the light is blue, then should I bright it up with this in mind?
I like to think of hue shifting in terms of opposite colors. A yellow light casts a blue shadow, and likewise, if you have a blue light, then I would make the shadows more yellow. The shadow color always lacks the color of the highlight. If you take white (every color) and subtract yellow (light source color), you end up with blue for your shadows. It sounds a little complicated, but visualizing it by messing around with RGB sliders helps a lot.
Another commenter made a great point too, which is using the complimentary color wheel to see which colors are opposite to your light source. Using that is a quick and easy way of picking the right colors.
Of course with all art, rules can be broken, so you could always experiment with different colors if you find one light/shadow combination that looks interesting. The hue shifting I outlined is to replicate how light behaves in real life.
The Lorax will always like your trees no matter what they look like.
I'm doing my own pixel art for RPG Maker MZ, and its going take forever to finish.
It all seems so simple when someone else does it. But then I place a few pixels and it looks like absolute garbo. I think I often start too small, it's a problem I also have with regular drawings, I always get really tiny, but the disadvantage of pixels is that the hard limit turns it into mush.
Can't draw a dog with one color and three pixels
Recognizing why you've made that mistake is a great step! There's a few tips I can recommend to help ensure that your sprite is the right size and proportion:
- It's usually best to stick with a standard sprite size for a frame of reference (and making sure you fill out the entire area with the sprite). 16x16, 24x24, and 32x32 are what I use the most, but you can also make great pixel art with plenty of other sizes (I recomend keeping it in multiples of 8). And of course you can stretch that square out into a rectangle (16x32 for example).
- If you aren't already, I highly recommend looking at both real world references and other people's pixel art. This is always something I do even if I think that I know what a sprite is supposed to look like in my head.
- You can always try tracing a scaled down photo to get a more solid grasp on shapes of different objects. Then as you improve, you can start drawing your own shapes.
I hope those tips are of use to you. Like with anything, pixel art takes practice. With time, you'll definitely improve!
@@BBGDev Thank you. I wasn't expecting a detailed reply, if at anything all, but thanks!
One thing I did is I started doodling. Just create a relatively big canvas and fill it with many little doodles in all different sized rectangles. You'll kinda end up with a quilt of many different sprites and images, but it kinda helps putting off the pressure of creating something recognisable or worthwhile right then and there, and instead just practice a new little thing in each little or big box.
I kept it to 2 colors for now, so I can practice silhouette and shape, proportion and contrasted shadows.
I'll tag you if I share it
bro i love your pixel style, got any links to examples of your art?
Hey, sorry for the late reply. Reddit is where I've put up the most art, but most of the work I do is for commissions, and I don't usually post them. I do need to get better about sharing my art (hopefully I'll have a portfolio site or page setup soon). Until then the best places to check are reddit and Fiverr (in the order examples):
www.reddit.com/user/ChipPlays
www.fiverr.com/chipplays/create-pixel-art-sprites-for-your-game
Some of that art is pretty old, but again, hope to share some newer pieces soon!
That's a really useful video ❤
hidden gem video
Very helpful video. Thanks for posting. If i were drawing a isometric style should I try to stick to it when drawing characters?
Hey, glad you found the video helpful! I would generally always stick to one perspective, so in an isometric game, everything will be isometric (including the characters). Obviously there can be expections to that rule if absolutely necessary, but I would try to be as consistent as possible.
How do you only have 270 subs? Count me in as sub 271. Awesome pixel art content. Thank you for the video.
Thanks bro
good stuff, ty.
Honestly I prefer the non-hue shifted version, but I think thats purely a stylistic choice honestly, the non-huge shifted version feels more akin to a early snes game for example which I like, but this is totally opinion based.
0 dislikes, as it should be
What program do you use to create your pixel art?
I use Paint.NET since that's what I'm used to, but Aseprite is another great option!
real
these are mistakes i never made