A Programmer's Guide to Pixel Art

Pixel art is very approachable when learned through the patterns it's made out of. This is a general tutorial for pixel art from the perspective of someone who doesn't have natural talent for it.
Games featured in this video:
My newest project:
• Devlogs
QuickDraw TCG:
cmlsc.itch.io/...
Alchemic Archer:
cmlsc.itch.io/...
Precious Cargo:
cmlsc.itch.io/...
Aeroblaster:
cmlsc.itch.io/...
Lucid (rxi):
No longer available on the internet outside of archives. :(
Roguelight (Daniel Linssen):
managore.itch....
NYKRA (ENDESGA):
nykra.com/
Eagle Island (Pixelnicks):
eagleislandgam...
Eastward (Pixpil):
eastwardgame.com/
Lollipop Ninja:
cmlsc.itch.io/...
Background Music:
OneShot Solstice - Sunrise Remix [Kamex]
• OneShot Solstice - Sun...

[@dirtywhitellama]

"It's not about talent, it's about a willingness to learn." This is what so many people don't get about art.

[@ApiolJoe]

*about everything

[@dirtywhitellama]

@@ApiolJoe That too. Although some things seem to be 'easier' to get that about than others.

[@TylerRayPittman]

I can code, but I can't do art *yet.* I think part of it was my bad penmanship had me convinced I'd never be an artist. I've recently learned and realized that art comes in many forms, and plenty of others with chicken scratch handwriting can make art

[@dirtywhitellama]

@@TylerRayPittman there's really no reason not to try, especially if it's something you actually want to do! Just don't get discouraged if it isn't as good as you want at first. Being bad at art (or most things) is just a phase in the path to getting good at it.

[@TylerRayPittman]

@@dirtywhitellama appreciate this. I instinctively know it, but it always helps to hear it from others who went down the same road

[@Vesdus]

Thanks for this! I found I have a very intuitive sense for pixel art, but I wasn't able to put a lot of the ideas I used into words. You helped me better understand what I already knew I was passively doing and helped me realize rules that I didn't know I was using.

[@MarxyBasement]

Me an artist would like a guide to programming lmao

[@DaFluffyPotato]

I actually have a general video for that. It’s the most popular video on my channel. lol

[@halobread]

Start with Scratch to learn some basics, then javascript, then, anything else really

[@MarxyBasement]

@@halobread i really said my comment as sarcasm ok😂 i know c,c++,c# assembly html and a lot more shit

[@jamesgellert1263]

Me too LOL

[@clocked0]

@DeeJay Develop Switch case statements can be much better/cleaner than if else statements in lots of circumstances

[@ronitsingh9955]

Those magic words at the end and the cool outro music just sold the video PERFECTION!!!

[@codergopher8270]

All you really need for pixel art is a fresh supply of MS Paint

[@wolfieeeee256]

Older versions of paint are easier I find as the Windows 7+ versions don't give as much control

[@blueberry7383]

@@rockdesu microsoft paint. But he made a joke actually xD

[@johnstamos5948]

@@rockdesu paint 3D, it supports transparency for pngs

[@jendorei]

MS Paint doesn’t have transparency though so it kind of sucks

[@Inkety]

@@jendorei colorkeys :/

[@yousefmahmood]

Bro I love how u talk fast without any addition like subscribe to the channel or something like that, keep it up body

[@NeatGames]

Some super awesome tips!! I need to remember to do Hue shifting more~

[@ohhellno8759]

Straight to the point, never goes off topic. Awesome video!

[@ellis1918]

You are underrated.

[@Zodiacman16]

These are awesome tips that apply to non-pixel art too, like 4K drawings or 3D models. Great video!

[@AntonioLatronicoDeveloper]

Incredibly useful video, thanks for sharing these tips!

[@temmieio3731]

Thanks for this video, I was looking for a tutorial to draw pixel art and I think this one makes the most sense

[@DavidAdochiti]

9:06 its about drive its about power we stay hungry we devour

[@zeldaandTwink]

I love how you logiced art for me. My mind is wierd and pattern recognition helps

[@soufflefatale]

Great tips and I love the art style of this game 0:11

[@miksuko]

This video is awesome!

[@DavidToussaint-o1l]

You are one of my favorite KZbinrs, your videos are so inspirational and helpful i learned alot from you. Pixel art isn't easy can you give me tips about pixel art for Ms paint it would mean alot???

[@Krugmaster]

thank you for that even if i choose now to not use pixelart itself and switching to prerenderd 3d objects as my way to go. Helped a lot and gave a ton of insight

[@davidpotvin5551]

Really cool content ! Tyvm

[@Aelindgard]

Hi @DaFluffyPotato I was wondering if you can do a short video on how you create your assets and how you maintain scale? Like creating the tiles and PC/NPC and ensuring they are to scale with the world/tiles. Thank you!

[@r4ns0licious]

I'd also be very interested in this :)

[@justdavid6678]

Thank you so much!

[@tPlayerioT]

i really like this line: 7:45 to 8:00

[@nahruz.w3044]

Wow this is really great, should had been recommended to me sooner

[@kunsterman]

Genius. No more words.

[@vaibhavpandey6640]

"there are some people who dont understand the beauty of pixels"

[@LimitedWard]

I've always been interested in game design from a technical perspective, but one thing that's held me back from trying it is a lack of vision. When you started getting into game development, did you go into it with a plan for what type of game you wanted to make? Or did you just start making something? I'm concerned that if I dive in without something specific in mind, then I'll give up too easily.

[@pinip_f_werty1382]

I don't know where you are after 2 years, but it would help if you started a habit of writing game hooks. Brainstorming is good practice for vision.

[@johnathangieger8032]

You are so fking good man.... wow. Keep the videos coming please!

[@moonwatchereclipse5291]

7:09 you sound like hiccup from httyd

[@webaccount167]

What about Minecraft's Old Textures? (Programmer Art) What would you say about them?

[@StepTheGlow]

bro please make tutorial about pixel art I love your style

[@gulliesgaminganddev9990]

plz sir give this answer Q = where from you learn programing by watching video or by reading documents of porgraming plz give the answer

[@barry8871]

why does that matter? not like there's a best way to learn and not like it would be suitable for anyone to follow, if you get good at something, you did the right way, and if you don't, you have experience

[@dicember92]

I decided to start this game development thing with the purpose to learn python and I want to share a thought: maybe there are other game enginges that make life easier for a game dev, but they don't give you the same knowledge and skill that working with pygame can give. I mean, it's about having an idea and make it real just with your problem solving skills and language knowledge. I think that the same concept can be applied to MS Paint. It's not how many things an instrument can make, but it's about how many things you can get from that instrument. A question: what do you think about making games with a narrative structure? have you ever wanted to make one or eventually made it?

[@DaFluffyPotato]

I’d like to add more narrative elements into my games, but I’m not interested in doing visual-novel type stuff.

[@dicember92]

@@DaFluffyPotato Yes, that's what I meant, I think that with more narrative elements your games would be even more gorgeous.

[@dicember92]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bGPGpmR7fteLkNk Hi, this is my very first experiment. It's an extremely small step into gamedev, but your works inspired me. I want to do better and better, so thank you!

[@simplepycodes]

Thanks a lot for all of your videos. I wanna ask is it true that they say you shouldn't spend that much of time on pygame? i really like python and pygame and I'm not bad in making games with pygame, so what's your take on this? is it a good idea to invest full time and effort on pygame? is it possible to use pygame in professional level? Thanks again.

[@DaFluffyPotato]

Pygame is definitely the best if you’re looking to transition into a normal computer science job. It’s also very effective for certain types of games. I’ve made the equivalent to professional wages from my games in the past, so it’s definitely doable. Pygame is limited in terms of graphical processing, but for a lot of games, you don’t need the crazy stuff.

[@simplepycodes]

@@DaFluffyPotato Thanks a lot, appreciate it.

[@simplepycodes]

@@DaFluffyPotato i know you can be busy but if you got a time to take a look at this and tell me what you think, would be very helpful to me. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fqO5Y5pvmpuoi6c

[@HeavnscapeRadio]

i’m really trying to get my style down. color, scaling, patterns- making it all cohesive is tough, but hoping to get better!

[@heroscapeguy15]

Being colorblind, this is a nightmare

[@danielinparentheses]

you can do it

[@sukima4745]

I would love to see a tutorial for camera-zoom

[@yashholkar1324]

Amazing dude! My games are inspired from yours!!👍👍

[@lmnad9548]

Me, who can't even beat level 5 in aeroblaster: wait there is LEVEL 7

[@hemantbisht5630]

Me also

[@Nerd0.09]

How to make a characters body parts move in pygame? Tutorial please

[@fudgeracoon2529]

Great video!

[@swiftal8312]

I was wondering about this, I made pixel art for a game on paint but if i were to use it in my game, becuase it is JPG it has white background, how do i make background transparent like a png?

[@MaunomauClips]

Save it as png and replace the white with transparency

[@swiftal8312]

@@MaunomauClips okay thank you 😅

[@ZaphyrVonGenevese]

Thanks for the video. I love pixel art, and am actively trying to refine an idea for a game of my own I can complete in a few months. I am kinda jumping around the style and genre, but my preference would be turn based strategy and pixel art. As I love both. But I kept reading that pixel art is pretty much over saturated and won't stand out unless it's perfect. Which mine will definitely not be given the time I am going to have. So I kinda backed up from pixel art at one point, but you gave me a hope again. My question though is - when starting a new game, do I need all of the art figured out? Like the dimensions and scaling, or can this be defined later in the process? How costly is it to change later? I would expect I need to have the dimensions defined, and change the sprites later can be a lot of work, but fairly simple I guess.

[@DaFluffyPotato]

I always start games with art. I generally get the scale, palette, and style locked down at that point. It really shouldn't be changed later.

[@tomwetherell389]

Hi great video! Might be a stupid question, but what do you use to draw your pixel art? On your computer or a tablet? And for software you mentioned using Paint before, what do you use nowadays? Sorry if I missed you answering these in the video

[@DaFluffyPotato]

I use Aseprite for larger scale stuff right now, but for lower-res, I use MS Paint. I have a drawing tablet, but I only use it when I use Aseprite.

[@muhammedfethicalskan5352]

Can we make io games with pygame ? Can we integrate to Django?

[@dafluffypotatovr7362]

Nope, although I've heard of people making mobile games with Pygame. From what I understand, when games are exported for web browsers, they have to be converted to the libraries that can run in your browser (such as webgl).

[@muhammedfethicalskan5352]

DaFluffyPotato VR got it! Thanks,looks like i need to use JavaScript

[@codingstreamsbyme]

this is one of the best videos on pixel art and pls don't say we don't have sense of art, i consider myself an amateur artist

[@jeevankumarm9208]

Sir, could you make a video on how to make our own characters for python's pygame development ! I am struggling, pls help sir !

[@shredman]

deadmau5: I can't play so I click programmers: I can't draw so I click

[@OneEgg42]

thank you!

[@andreicostea8625]

What interpreter are you using?

[@tauraamui]

How do your wheat parting effects work? Do you just show different edge tiles either side of where the playing is standing amongst the wheat,?

[@coconaatti2878]

can you make a vedio about jumping from ground to another? pls

[@UltronZX]

can u plz tell what format to save the art in so it can be used in pygame, im having a lot of trouble with it

[@Clark510]

what is the use of json file in animation

[@EnderElectrics]

What if you're an artist that can't code? xP

[@DaFluffyPotato]

The video still applies. It’s just from the perspective of a programmer.

[@amosdotl6892]

@@DaFluffyPotato find a programmer

[@imdavidanimations2018]

i would recommend to software Pixelorama

[@synapse5791]

Do you need a coulor pallete? Or can i just do my own thing be because i dont wanna be restricted with my coulors

[@Anriuko]

The reason for using color palettes used to be hardware limitations. Now a reason would be coherent visuals and eliminating fruitless finetuning and decision making from the artist's workflow. When you restrict yourself to a palette, and you need that color in between two distinct colors that isn't on the palette, you only have to choose between the two, instead of pondering the perfect color on an arbitrarily long continuum. It also predisposes you to developing a style when the restrictions of the palette (or pixel count, for that matter) are imposed on your atistic expression.

[@vaibhavpandey6640]

how you do wall jumps?

[@abdohfawze155]

please tell me a roadmap to became a pixlart game developer

[@kreshnikfazliu2497]

this was nice

[@Zakken333]

If you keep everything in the same file(with the same grid) how do you split them?

[@wolfieeeee256]

The game itself splits the spritesheet

[@GetShwiftyInHere]

Everything we do on smartphones and computers is pixel art. Very, very small pixels

[@simone-gk8mf]

Do you know any good pixel art programs that are free?

[@DaFluffyPotato]

MS Paint gets the job done for anything not animated. I made my own tool for animated stuff. cmlsc.itch.io/px-editor

[@daniel-zh9nj6yn6y]

Graphics Gale, Piskel (there are 2 versions: online and downloadable, there's no difference).

[@jaimedelasmontanas]

get aseprite, the king of pixel art

Show... Like! 👏

[@hextav]

Hello

[@OneEgg42]

@Useless Centipede hello there

[@robatikwulf]

I’m a pixel artist that wants to learn programming, where’s my guide?

[@Axo2305]

That’s what i am

[@richardlambert256]

Your vid is good or something. I subscribed, or whatever. Keep making a good product, if you want, I guess.... lol ;)

[@lila-h4z]

indians! I summon you!

[@voltifer5267]

When will you make a face reveal? 10k maybe?

[@DaFluffyPotato]

I'll probably only do it if this channel becomes a substantial portion of my income. Currently it's not worth giving up my anonymity for.

[@voltifer5267]

@@DaFluffyPotato Thanks for your great reply!

[@dimitriosdesmos4699]

the only thing indont like in your games is the physics of the player movement.

[@DaFluffyPotato]

It’s literally just fast for testing purposes. Aside from that, it’s fine. I’ve got a ton of experience with movement and it’s the area I typically do best.

[@gilian2587]

@@DaFluffyPotato Handling command input gets tricky. I fully admit that I haven't mastered it. It's always a process of... "Hmm... this doesn't feel right. ... if I just change it so... oh no... that broke the whole system... good thing I used a git repo before I tried anything serious..."

[@Nikku4211]

Me, a SNES artist:

[@Dumbunny420]

“So ur a programmer with no talent for art” even worse bro, I’m an artist who’s about to try and learn coding for the first time

[@legitimo1788]

Programming is a lot easier than making art

[@livedierespawn4003]

You don't need talent for art period. Most of it comes with practice

[@GlobusTheGreat]

Same is true for pretty much everything

[@vanbeekster]

You do sound like a programmer.

[@gromaxe]

Pixel art always was interesting to me, but slight colour blindness makes me fear it

[@SonnoMaku]

No, I'm a normal person with no talent for programming and art. One day I'm going to make something. For now I'm doing research.

[@azurechen123]

good luck man

[@lol_ghg_9777]

QuickDrqw TCG is a normal, but it is baging game

[@Benjahmenn]

I'm an artist with no talent programming the other way around

[@the_big_har]

all programmers sound dead inside

[@ridlr9299]

DaFluffyPotato: saturation will give people a headache Also DaFluffyPotato: saturate the things that you want to draw people's attention to hmmmmmmm

[@causticsimon1283]

not to be rude but the player head feels out of place to me

[@gilian2587]

Can't get it out of your head? ;)

[@reeflions]

Don't mind me, just a random artist coming through.

[@gilian2587]

We like your kind.... nobody really likes programmer art. (says the programmer)

[@RathXV]

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16