Pixel Art Class - Character Sprite Build!

Hey, this is E4 of my series on everything pixel art! Today we're putting our stylus to the canvas and actually making a sprite for our little "Love Note" concept character. Next episode, we'll cover detailing and finalising the sprite :)
Enjoy!
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This video features clips from my stream. Catch it live: Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri 1-6pm AEST.
Twitch: / adamcyounis
Twitter: / adamcyounis
Discord: / discord
Become a Patron at / adamcyounis
Check out my game Insignia at uppon-hill.itch.io/insignia
Later, pals!

[@Songfugel]

Came here for pixel art... ended up learning more about drawing characters and eyes than I have in years

[@HalfAcheesie]

Yep Ture

[@hashhbrownn560]

@@HalfAcheesie “Ture”

[@domedin9894]

He is a great artist and his pixel art is blows my mind

[@chimpuiudbilaw4871]

@@domedin9894 "is blows"

[@favor1791]

@@HalfAcheesie Ture

[@dsn3568]

2:07 this man has made a body in seconds better than the ones i do in half a hour

[@rhyss5618]

ikr its sad lol

[@ronyardev4421]

Me To But Me In 2 days Lol

[@alejmc]

I’m in the conundrum of forever watching tutorials and never practicing, that makes me make a single body take months xD

[@falaghsepehr5504]

I think doing it faster and not caring too much about the details helps you focus on more general things like anatomy.

[@koss3089]

adam: i highly recommend a tablet *me, learning pixel art because my tablet broke*

[@N3M3SiS]

Me, learning pixel art because I couldn't afford one

[@w1ck3dz0d1ac]

Me Re-learning pixel art after a car accident that makes it painful to draw normally

[@N3M3SiS]

@@w1ck3dz0d1ac Get well soon!

[@SpookiDoki]

​@@w1ck3dz0d1ac hope you're better by now!

[@annmarieroyal]

​@@w1ck3dz0d1ac I hope you're okay now!

[@Bethniijoy]

I love your positivity by starting the video by saying "No one is expecting you to nail it on your first go." :) edit: I wish I had your channel when I was learning about pixel art. There are some great channels out there, but you are incredibly talented and easy to watch, regardless of skill level of the viewer.

[@Alche_mist]

I react rather late, but still - that line singlehandedly made Adam a pixelated version of Bob Ross.

[@mizu9811]

I watch 1 min so far, yet I learned soo much already

[@The-cyber-imbiber]

Agreed. :P These are some nice knowledge bombs this guy is dropping, huh?

[@Dylan-cf6ld]

even the intro

[@sirwonka_177]

Making my own sprites for an rpg I'm making and the improvement I've made in the past week watching your tips and learning from your videos is freaking amazing. I am so stoked to get these character sheets done and get these uploaded into my game!!!!

[@StaplesofDoom]

I spit out my coffee when you gave her the traumatized bug eyes.

[@WaylonFlinn]

Looking forward to the rest of this series. Very helpful.

[@insanecomicdude]

Your art is incredible, and you've got some fantastic tips in here. Amazing.

[@ethanrieschiek6603]

Been a while since you’ve posted it but this tutorial is already so good and your voice is honestly so satisfying somehow

[@jonathansilva9139]

We've got to think of proportions and all that jazz, I like character design. It's one of the major things we've got to pay attention to it and thanks Adam for one more lesson. It´s really helpful, jolly good!

[@xic777]

this is teaching me a good ton man

[@SadTown99]

This seems like it unintentionally became one of the best pixel character tutorials on YT 😅 I learned so much in just a 5min section of this video

[@alejmc]

Alright, officially hooked to this channel. This man is a master of the craft.

[@Fuyukori]

Just 3 minutes in and it’s already so informative great video!

[@TheAncientLich]

Hey man, nice series. Just so you know, this video appears twice in the playlist :)

[@overratedprogrammer]

It's really amazing how humans can detect so much about eyes that even single pixels can change so much perception

[@ninsebas3676]

I used to struggle at making characters a while ago. Saw this video and everything changed. Awesome tutorial!

[@RonnieMcDee]

Thank you so much for this video. I just started making sprite a couple days ago. From what I made the other day to what I made after this video and the elephant video is insane. I have something that looks like a person!

[@PtfmusicUk]

Ace videos. Would be great to have more of these - specifically on character drawing... can find nothing of this quality anywhere else. Really fun and interesting to follow along.

[@CanalDojogames]

Great technics and great lessons. I myself have easy on pixel art, i studied a little the shapes of some games and decided to do something like octopath, thats my avatar...but after a while i stoped doing only art and started making my rpg,i started with an sprite sheet from smilegamebuilder engine, an rpg engine...but after sometime i felt that i wanted more to have more space,so i went from 64x49 to 60x90, today i finished my characters design and did them on pixel art. Well maybe some i can do an better design on cloths...but i already know the scale i want to use and its about test... also get as many reference as you can, stop and look to them.. think what you want more to do and start doing... Now im studying scenario and how i will do them .... i have an good reference and saw your video about houses and it clarify my ideas... thank you. Love your videos. Every dot counts on pixel art. Its my mantra.

[@alisonrose8911]

I am going to go into your learning eyes point and say that is amazing advice for anyone interested in storytelling in general. I love the content

[@ODet-93]

I recently got into pixel art and this is a great KZbin channel.

[@yananesmeyana]

Thanks a lot, your videos are awesome! Very helpful and very inspiring

[@flavafee]

lovely process work! thank you for sharing and educating!

[@lacey_and_her_stories]

Just what I needed, progress of making a character from scratch! :)

[@tantan7392]

Going to watch two of your videos each day and see where it gets me

[@ScopeSV]

Looking at how Adam builds a character teaches me to stick to coding.

[@fahimaljahangir3059]

lol

[@aikou2886]

His techniques helped me improve my monster designs once I got to spriting them but I still suck at desining human characters lol.

[@alvenkaiser4549]

I don't get how people say drawing is hard. Drawing is not hard, drawing while striving improvement is hard. This has no shortcuts but just to practice and practice. Well, I am not someone to say as I have been drawing as far as I can remember.

[@giantmanice]

​@@alvenkaiser4549drawing is hard when you are not skilled enough to bring the image from your head to the screen

[@thelambsauce9365]

this actually reeeaaalllyy helped me, since i was having alot of trouble creating people.

[@fernandapanda]

LOVED IT!!!

[@shorkyy]

I love your tutorial so much 💗!!! It's simple to understand and simple to do!! Thank you very much 😊

[@chris_columbus445]

Ty you helped me a lot. Also you are so talented

[@TheEpicSpire]

this is the type of tutorial i need more of.

[@tabs3102]

Amazing channel, thanks!

[@glori4635]

Needed this

[@kaulis6524]

Oh man i decided to start on pixel art and...wow this is to helpfull

[@jojomama7659]

Damn this is so informative

[@khalilanarchy]

this helped so much

[@lonelysorrowknight]

You should do a course teaching some traditional techniques and how they translate to pixel art in a stylized manner. Damn I would pay good money for that.

[@Gakusangi]

I start with the tablet with pixel perfect on to get the basic shape, and get the natural flow (very much like gesture drawing), and then I switch to mouse for fine-tuning and precise details. With pen and tablet I have and lack of experience, it's more difficult to be very precise with my pen.

[@NicotheMerchant]

Much appreciated.

[@TheHomelessNinja]

I love that palette from the start of the video. Or you know...the whole video lol Where would I be able to find that? Or is it a custom made one?

[@ryuli1]

you channel is amazing i am happy to subscribe

[@MrLoser-ks2xn]

Thanks!

[@user-dr5su9cx1f]

so good lecture

[@gabrielluna2474]

Can Someone gives me the link to the sketch program? I dont indertood what program is?

[@abrorboltayev1638]

this is nice

[@austintan2745]

Hey Adam, thanks for the fantastic tutorial! I was wondering if a clip or some other resource exists for next steps after your running animation tutorial? I’m particularly curious how those single “blurred” frames representing a large sweeping motion get translated into a static pixel frame? Thanks!

[@AdamCYounis]

Hey! Often times I decide to leave the smear frames in, or I remove them as I'm refining the sprite. I don't have a set rule, but you could make a case for stylistic consistency to do one or the other. When removing, think about the smear as a range and you're reducing it to a point between the previous and next frame. Leaf back and forth between the frames to find the position that makes the most sense. I'll be sure to make a video covering this phase soon!

[@masterboa6321]

make the glasses transparent, but have them become opaque when she has an idea

[@rangga6921]

Hi Reza Rahadian, thanks for the tutorial. this realy help for a non-artist background like me to build assets for my game.

[@pocky3308]

mirip yk wkkwka

[@rangga6921]

Cindy banget🤣

[@shahrajibrahim5920]

wkwkwk

[@ryanwilliams3111]

Getting some Bob Ross Vibes☺️

[@jerradbieno6810]

Hey Adam, love your content thanks for all the great vids! I had a general question for you as an indie dev. When you're working on a project do you use any task or project management software like Jira (or similar) to plan out features of the game? Curious if it is worth it as a solo dev if you don't need it for reporting schedules or time estimates to anyone.

[@AdamCYounis]

I've tried doing this for a long time, and never found that the results were worth it. As a solo dev, you'll often find that the project's requirements are changing as you're working on it. You realise some feature can be cut, or that some mechanic isn't fun unless it's expanded out into something else... so the tasks, features, dependencies etc are subject to change all the time. It's worth tracking your hours and it's worth trying to get your head around the scope of the project as best you can, no doubt, but trying to measure "how well the project is tracking" by comparing completed work against a list of requirements has only ever brought me frustration and anxiety. If it's a project small enough for a single person to complete, it's probably also small enough for you to manage the development by keeping a digital sketch pad of the designs and systems as you're building them.

[@jerradbieno6810]

@@AdamCYounis Thank you for the reply, that makes perfect sense!

[@serenabrowne4517]

@@AdamCYounis I was wondering, what software do you use? Or what do you think the best option is?

[@chanwo_opark]

Hi Adam, how did you 'jump' from one palette to another at 5:25? is there a shortcut to do that And how did the character's body color change from green to lightblue?

[@SpaceMango]

Looks like a cut in the video so he just changed it manually

[@Sieghiro]

Arkanpixel asking the real questions

[@rick.sebastian]

Wow good job teaching me

[@ultimateinternetman4335]

it's just so easy for these people isn't it? i thank god every day for making me absolutely terrible at the one thing i want to do most, game design

[@fugosfork7907]

Great I still have so much trouble drawing figures

[@spyrolancer]

whats program is that, it's making everything pixeled for you pretty much, like i saw just a stroke across the screen and it was pixeled

[@fr0styboy]

you're so talented man. why do my characters look like lumps of pixels?😭

[@stealthxhawk22]

Adam, at 8:13, what did you use to auto color the top of the hair like that?

[@jonks5913]

Really enjoy your content. Have a question with regards to 2D platformer that I'm attempting to create. When you have created an running, idle sprite for your character e.g. in a left stance and have drawn it so that the light source falls on one side. In the game engine I'm intending to use (gdevelop) you can flip the character sprite when the player turns the other way. (Pretty sure you can do that in most engines) My question is would I need to redraw it from the other side as the light source will now be on the wrong side or is there a way around it. Thanks in advance. 🙏

[@AdamCYounis]

I chalk this up as one of those "it's a game" things. It's super typical for characters to flip in games, even if they're asymmetrical. That said, I usually light from almost directly above to avoid this kind of conflict.

[@jonks5913]

@@AdamCYounis thanks Adam for the response, hmmm don't know if I have the energy to redo the Sprite with lighting from the top, as I've shaded my character from an almost 45° from right hand side. Prior choosing pixel art for the game I had no idea how not easy pixel art really is. I'll probably just flip the sprite in gimp and re-import them into Libresprite or Piskel to create the shading for when my character runs the other way.

[@gameclips5734]

the preview window is there so you don't have to keep zooming out

[@misu9708]

KZbin comments : *AMAZING* ! Twicth chat : *pixel* *butts* :D

[@suissefidelis9733]

Please do an advance pixel art next!!!

[@griff424]

I've been having a hard time drawing humanoid characters i hope these videos would ring a bell or smth

[@jasonespinoza5105]

Art is an iterative process. Get it wrong, add, subtract, refine, repeat.

[@7ANKOUCH]

What are you using to make these pixel art sprites ? I mean the app . And can i make pixel art sprites on my phone and then send them to my pc ?

[@renzodepoortere23]

Does anyone know how big his canvas size is?

[@Rexodiak]

BRO YOU'RE LEFT HANDED THAT'S SO COOL I'm left handed aswell, when using a tablet it's very annoying to hit the shortcut keys on the keyboard because they're meant for the left hand by default so we either have to cross our hands, or constantly take our left hand off the tablet and into the keyboard. The buttons on the tablet itself are a life saver but there's only like 4 to 6.

[@schrodinger547]

Mine is looking so weird, it's quite difficult for the first time 😅

[@TadashiOniota]

What size are the grey cubes in the background?

[@streesinhole]

tokyo skies by chipzel what i think about: just shapes and beats?!

[@linezokode9766]

10:53 thats teacher looking, not innocent

[@BigDylan]

what drawing tablet do you use?

[@heysupratim]

What canvas size were you using ?

[@jekkey]

Aseprites background tiles are 16x16 so his sprite is probably 48x32

[@pipimichan3251]

what pixel editor you use? Aseprite is not available ni tablet im using samsung s8 tablet and I use pixel studio

[@DarkArtAnimations]

Pixel art is scary tbh when I first started I was freaked out

[@monkesoki9963]

What canvas size did u used

[@trileminh4688]

Ahh hello? What program are you using to create pixel art? Does it have animation??

[@pranaykavula2741]

It is called Aseprite. Look it up!

[@beepie7673]

How much would you charge for a sprite like this?- I'm going into pixel art and want to know how much I should be charging!

[@softcakelol]

Can you do a tutorial for big character sprites like 200 - 300 pixels? :)

[@pebbles6244]

I want that colour pallet

[@roger2599]

What canvas resolution used in this video??

[@halobread]

only things that i think matter for collision head torso

[@kitsune7970]

What tablet do you recommend?

[@SecretTechniqueGuy]

Adam! Can you share some Aseprite palettes you like? I would like one like the one(s) you use but didn't find them on lospec.

[@SecretTechniqueGuy]

Actually maybe I did! You're using Apollo, right?

[@pixelpower6861]

“Like she was up all night studying.” Me who just got called out at 4am because I’ve been studying with KZbin in the background 💀

[@christophermurphy9661]

canvas size?

[@MrSpacepauls]

What is that awesome tune playing @8:30?

[@williamdrum9899]

The older the system you're making the game for, the more limitations you have.

[@saslykvogard1077]

7:34 what is that program?

[@user-cr6cd4qz3i]

when do i need to add lineart for pixel art?

[@otoesan7769]

what app is he using?

[@logotheking1275]

What app are you using by any chance?

[@TEDDYBeat1988]

does anyone know which program is used for the animation? also Leonardo? BTW great turorial :)

[@AdamCYounis]

Aseprite!

[@TEDDYBeat1988]

Thank you for your answer. I have seen today a another video on you Chanel who u say this :D

[@yellow4602]

yup

[@allandeschamps1167]

Which tool does he use for pixel art

[@MD-tj4uh]

Great video again! Can you do a video on canvas sizing and resolution for games?

[@berkaysimsek7529]

what is then name of u opened program at 11:11

[@tomyddd]

3:33 "it's okay to get it wrong for a while before you get it right"