Above are three of my character sprites in a setting made of shared assets.

Did you know itch.io has loads of free pixel art game asset packs that may be used for random projects?!

I'm glad I've been learning how to draw stuff myself. But it's still nice to experiment with layouts, colors, and tools without make every piece from a blank canvas. If I can find enough to at least serve as bases I can draw on top of, I might be able to switch next month to writing interactive fiction or programming simple games. (Mm, not so simple as what I've made in Scratch last month. That was cute but not worth sharing.)

Credits:

• stringstar fields (shrubs) by Trixie
• Village Props (ground, trees, stones, and bench) by Cainos
• Castle of Despair by bullov (bags, scroll, base for books, and reference for recolors)

This is half me talking to myself and half showing off concept drawings.

I was working on early game design today—

(nothing's final (like how immediately after this posting I made changes))

(where I'm at with the concept background)

—and I got to talking with someone today about my inspiration for its world.

Every day through several months, years ago, an original epic fantasy was running through my mind. At one point back then, I started an outline and story notes to reference later.

After today's conversation, I pulled up the project files for that novel series idea. (Those files are apart from the game files because of the way I organize my projects.) I started cleaning up file duplicates. That's when I noticed the modification date on some of the documents.

I was preparing those story writing documents this same week in 2022. Some were created this same date, 18th of February. These are documents like character and world-building reference sheets.

That means at this time three years ago, I was thinking about the same characters for the same world running through my imagination now.

Happy anniversary to me.

~☆~

Oh,and the Void? That's both a character and a place in the story.

Advice to beginners: Learn to draw a box.

That's good advice to artists learning the basics of drawing standard forms.

The thing about that is my dislike of drawing boxes when I was a kid.

I could draw straight lines and connect the dots. I could freehand a diagram copied from another page while changing its size. These are valuable skills!

But they were easy for me to pick up.

What I could not do was understand what the lines did if the box was turned. I couldn't move the box in my mind. Changing the size meant moving the point is closer together. To change the angle, the points had to be in different places relative to each other.

I could draw a "3D" diagram of a box.

The problem was understanding a 2D image as a 3D or really as a 4D (moving) object. I could draw a real 3D box on the page only how I could see it through my eyes in the moment.

I couldn't visualize the hidden parts.

This was despite how often I played in and around boxes.

This was a problem for understanding other 3D shapes like heads and feet, too.

Can you guess what helped?

Scultping.

Holding pets and persons in moments that form strong memories of what they feel like.

Martial arts.

In general, I needed to understand how solid 3D shapes feel, not only what they look like.

I've still got a ways to go to master the drawing of a box. But I've certainly gotten some basics down, yeah?

Long ago in places far away, I made tree paintings with acrylic on paper or canvas. But now I'm learning how to do it digitally with a mouse.

My first attempts have been helpful as studies but not what I was aiming for.

I'm getting closer to a style that works for what I'm envisioning—

This concept art doesn't really show the stages below. From the last frame of the animation, imagine more growth and leaves.

Steps I'm Feeling Out:

1. Create multiple layers. One of the great features of digital art for the artist is that we can work on multiple layers with no waiting for pieces to dry. Each layer represents a depth.
2. Name each for the dominant thing expected to be at the layer's depth. Example: "trunk" and "fore-branches".
3. Block out the shapes on the appropriate layer. This can be whole tree or only the trunk and dominant branches.
4. Differ the main color(s) for each layer. If nothing else, this helps with checking if you're on the target layer, at least while there aren't too many details. But it can also help with creating a sense of depth on the final image.
5. Add shadows and highlights. This helps defines the shapes (and can be done on separate layers if confidence is an issue).
6. Set on to the fine details. Add and shift colors as needed,

I plan on revising this post when I'm further along. Maybe it will help someone.

I'm watching these two.

Ep1c K1ss Art

• candies for lip-shaped box
• due February 10
• image up to 1337 x 1337 pixels
• any rating; E—M preferred

The Toybox

• toy art (one or two)
• due March 25
• max image size is 1000 x 1000 pixels
• E rating

Have you played the "Wanted" game yet? I'm loving how it (my first collab here) came out!

sebulant's graphics are fun. The gallery makes my heads look extra cool.

#^_^#

To be honest, today overall is not going smoothly on my side. I feel like I'm being pulled in five different directions.

Personal projects I was thinking of publishing today aren't ready. I'd have to take shortcuts I don't really want to take to complete them. But also, I should stop doing everything the extremely hard way. Example: it's okay to use dither brushes, FFS! Or to use an existing palette! I'm not sure why my mind is being mean about tools this week.

Another collab I submitted to is Petri Pals. As of this writing, my contribution isn't in the group. That's supposed to get corrected. I'm not sure that'll happen today. I'm bummed about being left out, but I understand how it happens. I'll be relieved to see my virus show up on the page later.

How's it going for you?

This can be where all five of my heads are together, year? The first three link to pages with larger sizes.

OC: Fraxinus

OCs: Desert Aloe and Licorice Rose

Blockhead: Conscience

Madness: Wank

I've already made tiny changes of the versions submitted to the game collaboration. The differences shouldn't be noticeable when the game is released.

By the way, I'm tagging this for fan art, but I haven't played the games or watched any movies with the last two characters. I tried, but Newgrounds games rarely work on my side. The videos were only of the "classic" cartoon baubles shooting each other with simple motions; not exactly helpful.

The Newgrounds characters were mostly chosen for their names, if I'm honest.

Go meet Licorice Rose!

There's not much backstory to the characters yet. This style of drawing is more time-consuming than it might look, and moving individual pixels takes too much attention for daydreaming.

Related: I've started to make a very simple movie with LR and Aloe. By the time I found a decent program that combines separate audio and gif files, I'd lost interest in editing the whole thing. For now. Honestly, it wasn't interest as much as the energy I'd lost.

I need a break. The current disaster of AI-clogged systems and online-only help guides is tiring to deal with. Plus I'm worn out from constant research to do anything new. Research is fun when it's not, you know, for government applications and healthcare policies and how to perform emergency home repairs without help, but breaks are important.

Please message me if you know of beginner-level Kdenlive tutorials or anything like that good enough to shine through mind fog.

If you'd enjoy commissioning me or throwing money my way as random act of kindness, I've got a Ko-fi page and a tipping button on Neocities. I would like to buy some inexpensive reference images and maybe a copy of Aseprite. The official program runs offline like Libresprite and has dithering tools like Piskel does! There might be no gift money coming in this year that I can use, and I have a depressing list of healthcare and government ID expenses to somehow save for. Still, it would be nice not to save time and electricity with better materials.

January appears to be a month for celebrating pixel art here on Newgrounds.

I've missed previous years, but I'd like to participate this year. There are three things in the schedule...

• Jan 12: Deadline for Wanted! Pixel Art {Game} Collab | organized by sebulant

• Jan 15: Deadline for Petri Pals Collab | organized by mantis & malfromed

• Jan 23: Pixel Day

These are lovely! Tho I have questions.

For collaborations, we submit our pieces to the people doing the combining and promotion. Then we wait for the release date to talk about what we made and post reviews. Is that how they work?

Pixel Day might have four contests: top picks in still art, games, movies, and music. Do we know what sizes and lengths are popular? Can we enter in a category multiple times?

This is an update from my previous post:

The collaborative artist sticker sheet (offsite) that includes my art is available and should be until the 15th of December. These sticker sheets were created to raise funds for Trans Rescue, a Netherlands-based organization for saving people who need to seek asylum from transphobic countries around the world.

You can view and buy other contributing artist's handmade items at the organizer's shop. There are digital and physical art ranging from $2.50 to $100+ for the limited time. The selection is nice to look at even if you can't purchase anything.

https://ko-fi.com/inherentlee/shop

If you're in the US wondering if you can get help with safety—yeah, me too. Trans Rescue's "Post Election Assistance" covers limited options. Like with the Human Rights Campaign's page going around social networks, the listed resources might be outdated or closed to new requests. Our federal elections aren't yet over (with the Electoral College voting this month and Congress doing its disorderly thing refilling seats), but with the political situation backsliding so quickly, everyone who cares is being overwhelmed. Obviously, with millions of Americans with any sense left preparing for the threatened attacks that's huge amounts of activity. You might want to dig around in your region for supportive people and resources. Some places are offering localized advice and emergency services.