Making “Color”-themed Game Boy Pixel Art! | GB Pixel Art Jam 2024

[@BirdsProbablyArt]

Hello Brandon! Thanks a lot for featuring my art! You were the most important influence on me starting pixel art, so it's a bit of an honor! :) There were so many amazing pieces and, this being my first art jam, I was blown away! I loved the solidarity and positive vibes between artists, and would also like to thank all the artists who took the time to compliment and give feedback on my piece! I had so much fun! This is definitely an event I'll be participating in yearly from now on. :D

[@BJGpixel]

Oh hi, wow thank you so much, I'm glad we could kinda come full circle like this! 😊 And yeah this year's jam really levelled things up - I was surprised by the number of entries, and loved scrolling through all the different types of art for each palette. I think the Blood Tide palette was actually one of the more challenging to use, and your piece does a great job showing how it can work well together. Love how layered and cinematic it looks too ✨

[@BirdsProbablyArt]

@@BJGpixel Thanks! The compliments go straight to my heart! (and my ego) I actually picked the Blood Tide palette because it reminded me of some of the unusual choices I've made with my own palettes in the past. :) I'd say ultimately none of the palettes here were entirely conventional (looking at you Mangavania), which challenged people and made them get creative! It's what pixel art is all about, and I can't wait to see what next year's theme and possible twist will be!

[@LeBifStek]

11:00 Hey, I'm BifStek, I'm so happy to be featured in your video ! I've been following your since a little more than a year now, and I love all of your stuff ! The jam was really fun !!

[@Jchap7777]

Hey Brandon!!! I just wanna say I love your vids and I started drawing pixel art stuff cus of you. My family loves it and you are my BIGGEST inspiration! Thank you for making such amazing content. Keep up the good work!!! 💙🩵

[@Not-YourCheese]

Couldn't have said it better myself! ❤

[@endermagnet5867]

That's my entry in the top right at 11:34! The colours reminded me of a blueprint, so I went with that idea and finished up with a Gameboy schematic. This was a lot of fun to participate in, and I'll be looking out for next year's jam :)

[@ragcat3732]

I agree that they’re all solid choices! I think for more modern screens the Homework pallet is the best, but on the CRT I love the look of Mangavania! Great work as always, and good luck in the jam :D

[@ChunkySteveo]

Great breakdown into your image. You put a lot of effort into it, and it showed! There were so many amazing art pieces this year - some seriously talented people!!! Mine was like the sketch book idea, but was a sketchbook platformer.

[@littleville6546]

I was expecting this video :D It was my first time in this kind of art jams and I've really enjoyed it. It's nice that you find time to participate and comment some submissions, there is a lot of amazing pieces in the jam gallery. I've never worked using a color palette as a theme and it was interesting to me to explore different concepts from color abstraction. Your theme is just epic, congratulations for it! I think I would choose the Forgotten Swamp or Homework, but it's allways hard to decide hahaha I love your content dude, keep rocking! :)

[@Terran123rd]

I had a lot of fun with this jam. My entry (GB Adventure!) was actually my first ever "complete" piece of pixel art and I learned a lot making it.

[@NSeaBear]

This was my first jam. Very fun and challenging. Big fan of you btw. Been watching for years

[@James_Kosmo]

that was fastly recommended. I was working on a 2d game a couple of years ago and i had to "learn" pixel art, your videos are always super fun and helpful, keep it up!

[@dextertheio2857]

yeah

[@Metrocysh]

Love your approach to pixel art! Always makes me want to go and make something 💛 Also, Mangavania was a clear winner for me, I adore bright colors

[@svenhegenmusic]

I could see the blood tide palette work with a similar artwork as well, but in my opinion, because the red and dark cyan color have almost the same luminance, it is hard to tell which one should represent a shadow or a middle grey area. I think if you starte the artwork with this palette, the design would have been totally different. btw regarding the clouds I was wondering, why you didn't choose bigger tiles. like for example doing a 2x1 tile or 3x1 tile. this only adds a handful on the tile counter, but could increase the detail and puffyness for them. You chose to add dither patterns instead later, which looks cool too, tho. Oh and a funny little easter egg I'd add to the individual palette versions would be to fill those HSB sliders in the image with the amount of the most prominent color of the palette. so for the homework pallete the middle blue (#45568d) would be about roughly 60% Hue, 50% Sat and 50% Brightnes, while the strong pink of the Mangavania (#e64ca4) would be 80% Hue, 70% Sat and 90% Brightness. The idea would be if you hit the monsters and their HP decrease, the color palette changes along with them

[@BJGpixel]

Yeah that's exactly right, it's got a narrow contrast - but for the people that designed with it from the start it seemed to work out! Totally agree with your notes about those clouds and HSB details; could have pushed a bit more into it, I think I got too focussed on making the most efficient tile count and then getting it across the finish line for the jam 😅

[@RobinsonPixels]

Great job dude! Love your approach for the theme; I was really stumped trying to come up with a Color theme for mine at first haha. Absolutely love the character design and the general vibe of a character facing great challenges like this Also: versaTile 😂

[@BJGpixel]

Thanks so much! And yeah I think the approach of also using the idea of "color" as a theme can be abstract but also led to some fun ideas! I love in yours how there's the little crab footprints going around the canvas 😂 Nicely done, and congrats again on making it through such a busy month of various 4-colour artworks!

[@RobinsonPixels]

@@BJGpixel Hey thanks! I'm just finishing up my plan for the video on it. I think it'll be a fun one, because I went through a LOT of iterations before I actually had anything finalized

[@BJGpixel]

@@RobinsonPixels Haha awesome, looking forward to it! ✌😄

[@Pinballfan]

I’m just getting into pixel art.. love this channel!

[@Pennywhen]

Personally, I loved it in mangavania! Especially the hue wheel and the things you were saying about ink and printing for the saturation; it brings to mind CMYK and the print calibration swatches you see on packaging. The contrast also felt really funky.

[@maverick12070]

I chose the Homework Palette as well, since it was the most pleasing to look at or as you call it, it had the best balance. Im very proud that I managed to finish my piece in only around a day, since I only had so much time. Your piece of art is a nice. I havent really thought about HSB as creatures. Very creative idea. :D

[@Linck192]

This tile limit thing is really fun. I'd love to see more videos like that

[@narigavo8269]

I've been trying to get a hold of pixel art, balancing work and uni is really tiring, but you are one of my greatest inspirations for even trying to make pixel art, so thank you!!!

[@TehCheeseMage]

I like that you keep the ”Atlantic” / fantasy mythical water theme from your past participation in this jam ❤

[@MaxwellCatAlphonk]

Hydra, Slither and the Beast The three headed Hydra, Snake or Beast

[@CKTDanny]

The idea behind the saturation head is fricken rad man!!! Incredible result, especially with the constraint of being a GB background. This is definitely one of my recent favourites 😎✨

[@BJGpixel]

Thanks dude! That was my favourite one too, feels like an ink hydra alone could be some awesome monster more 🐉✨

[@Her-sf3kj]

thanks brandon for helping me get into pixel art! also mangavania is my favorite

[@tak-sebe-shutnik228]

Thank ya for new video, Brandon! I really enjoy watching your videos, they helped me to learn pixel art

[@CreativeSteve69]

It's always great seeing a new upload from you Brandon. Every since I found your channel years ago and started my own gamedev learning journey. You inspired me into learning pixel art so I could slowly eventually do my own assets for my future games. Been learning now through a fun udemy course for almost a month now learning Asesprite finally after owning the software for years. So thought i'd finally come out of the lurking shadows and thanks for the encouragement. Pixel art is both challenging in its own right at times yet it's also really really fun and calming to do at the same time. :)

[@potetopancakes]

i wanted to participate but i couldn’t think of an idea fast enough 😔. always love seeing your process though!

[@jasonpollak4629]

I love the cyan and magenta in mangavania, really evokes the theme of color!

[@SethKotta]

It's hard to say which color palette is my favorite for your piece. It works well with all of them

[@jonathanfaber3291]

Oh god it’s been a week since the jam already? How time flies huh? 11:43 holy heck I’m in the bottom left :D

[@SZvenM]

Super fun concept, and I love watching your progress in black and white. So satisfying to see it built up like that, and then have that "reveal" moment of color being added. Very cool!

[@nw2kr8bc3t]

I think it would be really cool having a custom piece that uses all four color pallets on different tiles to really sell the color picking confusion.

[@lexibyday9504]

I really want to try using these colour palettes for myself now...

[@thomasrosebrough9062]

My art visible at 10:27!!!!! Its the one on the right side called "Wet Paint"!

[@intelhdmaster7141]

It was an awesome video but i would to ask on your thoughts regarding the Jus mugen artsyle and maybe on poses

[@LightningStrike07]

I participated in this one after I saw your community post about it! I've never participated in any art jams before, so this was a great experience to get me out of my comfort zone by using a small palette with the added time limit. My piece was titled "Bird Watching" and I used the Homework palette for it.

[@BJGpixel]

Ooh awesome, glad you were able to join! I feel that as well, the constraints of the jam can be really refreshing and challenging in a fun way. And I just looked yours up - nice that you were able to work with a large illustration like that; the way the character is framed within the canvas would look great on a Game Boy 😎✨

[@SirMorland]

My words exactly! Just recently started watching the channel so when I saw that post I was very eager to try to make an actual pixel art piece myself. Went with Mangavania palette, "Slime Encounter on a Mountain Road". It was a very fun event and an amazing friendly community, loved scrolling through all the entries this past week (I remember seeing your entry there too)!

[@softy5447]

I was sad to only notice your reminder about this 30 minutes before the deadline, is this jam held regularly because I'd love to try it next time

[@merilyn7247]

This event was a good experience! Thank you for posting about the art jam! I will definitely participate again next time!

[@bokan1056]

You should make Pixel Hologram Stickers&Magnets but with a slight hint of CRT

[@Entarra]

I think Bloodtide would have looked great if you swapped the red and blue elements, a dark sky with the hydra in a rusty red

[@SnowPeaGames]

Super creative representation of H S and ..... *B*

[@user-dv2mn3cu4x]

I missed the gb jam, I learned when it was a day after it was over

[@jackthehacker05]

I really loved the homework and mangavania palettes for your work!

[@elicenyne]

Ok but what color would using all three healthbar values be though

[@BJGpixel]

It's constantly changing as you're fighting it 😂

[@ShadowDrakken]

I vote for Homework or Mangavania :)

[@Kyleology]

Forgotten swamp looks so much better.

[@AdrianCeroni]

The colours look different on the CRT. I think Spooky Forest on the CRT looks good and Manga a bit off but the opposite on LCD.

[@JayFolipurba]

You too good at having, or giving others game ideas. I'm thinking of a skill based game now where the three heads are HSV gradients and you have to cut the necks of the hydra at the correct spots to create a certain color. Like if the current hydra can only be destroyed with a dark desaturated blue, you have to cut the necks at the correct value, saturation and hue to create that color. On a fail state they regrow, on a win state the next level starts, maybe with narrower HSV gradients requiring you to be more precise

[@BJGpixel]

Haha ooh I didn't even think about those potential gameplay implications but that's a really fun idea! Feels like a game that would also try to teach you colour theory along the way 😄

[@JayFolipurba]

@@BJGpixel if only we knew someone who has a game dev studio... wink wink

[@BJGpixel]

@@JayFolipurba 😂

[@CushionSapp]

The Mangavania color palette looks more Vaporware

[@RyanGurry]

Trans color palette went hard tbh

[@mexmillian5709]

Missed opportunity to make the heads a Hydra Snake and Basilisk

[@imawerido5995]

woah this looks awesome

[@lafolleauxmostisma]

My favorite is homework it’s really nice to look at ! ^^

[@Dan_d00d]

And innnnnnn we go! Fun fact for you BJG, of over 300 channels of content creators subbed, you are somehow the only one I keep with the warning bell. This one looks very much back to the pixel art roots by the title. ... or to SQUARE one Post watch: You really got the painbrush feel to the 'weapon' ! And i wont critique the non jointly bodied hydra heads ;) Overall a super clever concept. PS that swamp witch was amazing- can we some Hween vibey stuff similar?

[@BJGpixel]

Thanks d00d, really appreciate your support all this time! Glad you enjoyed the vibe here, and thanks for not mentioning the hydra body connections at all 😅 I've got a few other things in the works but might look at doing something for Halloween - I guess time is running out on that 😱

[@Phoenix-and-Miles]

nice vid, as always!

[@Oceane1803]

Yeah I do agree that the homework palette fits best with your piece.

[@-seth]

I’m confused about the tile count. Does it only count each unique tile and then ignore all duplicates? And since the hydra head on the left is flipped it’s recognized as unique? It seems super difficult to keep everything under that tile count 😅

[@timothymclean]

Well, you can have 192 unique tiles out of the 360 available at that canvas size. Less than half of the tiles need to be duplicates of other tiles. It's a constraint, but hardly an insurmountable one.

[@BJGpixel]

That's exactly right! And yeah, without the webtool I'd be entirely lost, a lot of it comes down to deciding when to "spend" tiles on a really unique/custom part of the illustration, and then balance that with repeated designs. Can get restrictive, but I actually find it kinda fun to battle against the limits 😅✨

[@AFelloCNDN]

this was my first jam i had a great time:D

[@RainMakeR_Workshop]

I liked it in Forgotten Swamp. Purple and green are classic villainous colours.

[@Oceane1803]

I chose Mangavania and made a top-view Splatoon-themed piece. Because you know Splatoon and color. But honestly, it didn't look the most impressive. It was pretty basic, especially compared to the other pieces. It didn't go anywhere close to the limit of 192 8×8 sprites. But to be fair, the concept I imagined was something that would be playable, so there would be other sprites that aren't on my piece for movements, animations... Maybe I should expand on that concept outside of the Jam. Make those movement animations, an actual map... I can't make this an actual game, but it would be cool to work on this as a concept still.

[@BJGpixel]

Nice, I just went to look it up again - the paint idea works really well for this actually, because the tiles create perfect paths like you have with the paint roller. For sure, could definitely be worth exploring the concept more and playing around with animations. Most of my art ends up being imaginary game ideas as well 😅

[@Oceane1803]

@@BJGpixel Yeah I thought using the roller would leave a trail that's 16 pixels wide behind it. The Splattershot makes only 8×8 tiles but goes much faster. The Charger would leave long lines that are 8 pixels wide. Getting splatted would leave a 16×16 splash of ink of the opposite team where the character got splatted. I also thought of something if it were a real game that, if it's surrounded on all sides by tiles of the same color, a splash sprite would become a full square sprite. That way it would look more unified when you ink the ground. Also I just realized (it's a bit too late now ^^') that I could have recreated Splatoon's HUD on my piece. That would have been a good way to use more of the available tile slots.

[@BJGpixel]

@@Oceane1803 That sounds awesome, would be cool to see a Splatoon demake on the Game Boy like that, and actually sounds like the tile grid would present a great "strategy" element to it! Never too late to keep playing around with more mock-ups! ✌😉✨

[@Oceane1803]

@@BJGpixel I already started, but my old tablet turned off even though there still was battery in it (and then it was at 0%). I'm starting to consider putting everything I want to keep on the SD card and then putting the SD card in my phone. I love that tablet, I've had it since I'm a teen, but it's getting tiring. Maybe it's time I stop using it. For the map, I was thinking of tiles where the walls are 4 pixels wide, and if you ink the walls, the two pixels in the middle become of your color, indicating that you can climb them. Also I was wondering, is it possible for the Gameboy to change a sprite's palette, or does the exact same sprite but with the colors organized differently count as a different sprite ?

[@BJGpixel]

@@Oceane1803 That's a really good question! I'm inclined to think that having the colours reorganized like that would count as a new sprite. For 'Game Boy Color' games though, I think it's the case that you could store up to 8 palettes that could be called upon to recolour the assets; so if you started looking into GBC specs it might lead to some useful insights! www.gbstudio.dev/docs/scripting/script-glossary/color#set-sprite-palettes

[@LeeChesnalavage]

Haven’t watched this yet but based on the thumbnail 😎 👌

[@BJGpixel]

👾🌈

[@ARDIZsq]

Ah man, I wish I knew about this so I could have entered. Maybe next year.

[@linusjensen6905]

1st thing on my recommended

[@SomePersonOnEarth-ub9xv]

RIP Game Gear

[@polter5195]

Even as the creator of Mangavania (sorry), Homework was an excellent choice for this piece. It really translated the best to the CRT screen too. Was interesting watching your workflow and seeing the standout entries from each palette. Awesome video!

[@BJGpixel]

Oh hey!! That means a lot, thanks so much! It was really refreshing seeing the Mangavania palette among the selections; it felt like the fun "wildcard" pick and was great to see so what everyone did with those colours 💗💙

[@stopmotionadventures4812]

5 hours ago

[@Dr_twisted_studio]

YAY HEAVENLY CONTENT!!!

[@SillyGuy-ng4cc]

It’d be really awesome if you talked about undertale and deltarune art! I love your art and it’d be so cool to see it interacting with toby fox’s style.

[@deltaangelfire]

magic color hydras vs magical girl in clouds I was 100% certain you'd go for Mangavania >.

[@BJGpixel]

Honestly, you're not wrong and I'm surprised myself - all signs were pointing to that 😅

[@bastiangamer5459]

How can I participate?

[@Vexel-EXE]

Can you make a color palettes again pls

[@banabana4691]

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