Pixel Art STYLE SWAP! | Ninja Gaiden ⇄ Mega Man X4

Let’s see what happens when we take two pixel art sprites and swap their rendering styles! In this video we’ve got Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden and X from Mega Man X4!
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0:00 Introduction / 1-Bit Iso
0:33 X in Ninja Gaiden (NES) style
2:46 Ryu in Mega Man X4 style
7:57 FINAL COMPARISON
8:31 VID OVER
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Check out my art here:
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Software used: Adobe Photoshop (CS6)
Need help picking a pixel art program? Watch this: • What Program to use fo...
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Title sequence theme music by Failpositive:
www.failpositive.bandcamp.com/
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Chiptune music by mcguy215/Concrete Castles:
www.fiverr.com/mcguy215
/ mcguy215

[@JuhoSprite]

Reminds me of how the messenger has an 8bit version and a 16bit version of the game and it switches everytime you enter a portal. It's a really good metroidvania you should play it if u haven't already, it's an homage to ninja gaiden

[@BJGpixel]

Wow that sounds really cool, gonna have to check it out!

[@BJGpixel]

@Blank Yeah I've been meaning to pick that one up for awhile, looks awesome!

[@narwhal3638]

@@BJGpixel oh man, cyber shadow is totally awesome, you're gonna love it! It's probably the closest we'll ever get to ninja gaiden 4

[@HyperKaito]

@@BJGpixel Same!

[@niclaswa5408]

@@narwhal3638 You could say the same for The Messenger

[@nahruz.w3044]

8:03 "fairly passable"! It look really great brandon.

[@BJGpixel]

😅 Thanks dude, I was trying to picture seeing them show up in each game, if they'd stick out or not - I guess the ultimate thing would also be _redesigning_ the characters to fit those worlds!

[@GameplayUploaded]

ninja gaiden looks younger while megaman becomes older after swap. Nice!

[@mythosinfinite6736]

My favourite part about this comment is that neither of the names are right

[@volcanianthegreat]

@@mythosinfinite6736 yup its X and Ryu.

[@CKTDanny]

Wow interesting results, I *really * liked the way the Ninja Gaiden one turned out in particular! 😱 Honestly, the whole format here is just really neat. I'd love to see some more of these style swaps from time to time! 😁✨ I feel like you did a great job highlighting the techniques you used too. Especially the hue shifting, it actually had a very noticeable result even as you were tweaking the slider!

[@BJGpixel]

Thanks man! Yeah the Ninja Gaiden one makes me wonder what a full game in that style would be like! For sure, I think I'll revisit this format from time to time! Glad the hue shift segment paid off - it's funny building a sprite like this and having the final steps come down to moving some sliders around..."Art!" 😅

[@CKTDanny]

@@BJGpixel Hahaha at least it's a pretty unique flow! Wow, now I want to try that slider finishing approach to a different style, like digital painting. I'll bet that could be done with adjustment layers & layer masks! 😁

[@BJGpixel]

@@CKTDanny absolutely, in fact I think it's way more common for that medium, and I've just adapted it into a pixel workflow! 😁

[@CKTDanny]

@@BJGpixel Oh, is that so? Interesting! Then I feel like watching it done pixel-style has helped me better visualize what's happening 🤩✨

[@llamapunk89]

I love how you don't just show your process, you explain it and talk about some of the interesting things you discovered. Always makes me want to attempt to make my own pictures out of tiny squares. 😊

[@phileon2323]

Yo yous should absolutely sawp pokemon between generations, as in get a pokemon from newer games like blach and white,and remake them in the style of the gameboy games

[@CoolGuy-yk9kd]

seconded

[@austinreed7343]

Or swap a Pokémon and a Digimon.

[@user-vd8nm8sv6x]

lovely idea!! maybe he could do a couple versions, one like you said, and one that’s animated as if it’s in the original “follow trainer” mode! that way we can see how he would do a side profile!

[@backflipsimmons]

That or a Earthbound or Final Fantasy style for Pokémon. It might be hard to do the other though. I have full confidence in you though Brandon. Always a treat to see a new video in my feed. Great work as always man!

[@kikasuru3826]

oooh! and give them that weird gen 1 flare!

[@lordofbread8727]

Petition for Brandon to make "If Shrek was an NES game"

[@BJGpixel]

😂

[@lordofbread8727]

@@BJGpixel so that means a yes:)

[@Mattno.777]

@@BJGpixel Brandon, I swear to God, If you recreate Shreks house and swamp in a 1-Bit Style, well call you an official CHAD

[@hellovik]

This is amazing. Please make this happen.

[@user-ik8vy1rg8f]

@@BJGpixel Because of its meme cred, you'd get a ton of views.

[@Dinhjason]

Reverse-engineering pixel art styles is really inspiring. Wow, well done. I'll try the same for my stuff too!

[@shanerpressley]

I'd love to see a style swap between Kirby and Yoshi's Island. Great synergy between different takes on a cute artsy style

[@crupplemcsplits792]

Yoshi' s Island DS and Kirby Superstar Ultra were like the first two games I ever played so if he did do this it would be really cool.

[@bpelectric]

That's such a cool idea. I especially like that you crossed generations. Some more stuff in that vein would be cool. Would also be cool if you crossed genres, like maybe take a Kunio-kun (River City Rampage, Super Dodge Ball NES) character and do it in an SNES Fire Emblem game style and vice versa haha

[@BJGpixel]

Thanks! Yeah mixing genres would make things even more interesting! :D

[@XanderFlicks]

Really enjoyed this video! Commentary was super descriptive and insightful too. Would love to see more in this series!

[@PirataGalactico]

BRANDON: i know that watching someone make subtle tweaks to adjustment layers isn't exactly the most compelling kind of footage... ME: This is amazing!!!

[@rauljvila]

I find your videos very inspiring. Thanks! Random style swap idea: Mario (choose the game you like) Street Fighter

[@shaunm6383]

Pixel art style swap with the Legend of Zelda games. Any of them will do.

[@whoelsebutmeofcoursei]

Such as Breath Of The Wild

[@TempestKrimps]

even if the video is just for fun, i actually learned quite a bit from this as a pixel artist myself! most importantly the way to work with value and then color it in with another layer, very helpful

[@zaftnotameni]

style swap is such an amazing idea. Love your work in general, this adds another layer of awesomess to it

[@Ruok98Reborn]

“I know that watching someone make subtle hue changes isn’t that interesting” that was my favorite oart

[@Voidsworn]

See, that's the way X should've looked on the GameBoy Color.

[@RadicalSharkRS]

Megaman Extreme?

[@Voidsworn]

@@RadicalSharkRS MegaMan Xtreme, to max! Radical! But yeah, that one 🙂

[@peterjanssen5901]

ah, thanks man. You gave me some sweet new helpful techniques I can use when I'm Photoshopping. :) Especially the grey scale underlayer and then adding a colour or colour tone layer and then tweaking it. Good stuff.

[@mateusbertolaccini3805]

I love this form of art. An incridible remake and an interesting demake. Great job, Brandon!

[@EpicZombie92]

Thats a really cool idea for a pixel art project! These videos always seem to give me some inspiration. Keep up the great stuff!

[@justintkain]

your method for shading the mmx-style ryu was so interesting! never thought about doing something like that for pixel art before! thanks for sharing, this was super cool to watch! :)

[@ayeitburns1]

Gorgeous, you've captured the tone of each perfectly and they look great. I'd love to see some more artstyle swaps like this

[@fivestringpat]

this video has been really helpful for someone like me, who hasn't really succesfully drawn anything yet and wasn't sure where to start. watching how you progress the line work, and then go to grayscale for shading and using the colourblending layer to move towards a finished looking product, that all makes logical sense!

[@chrizzzly_hh]

Awesome results! Keep up the great quality in each of your videos! 🙌

[@henrikaugustsson4041]

That was really good, especially Ryu into X-style. The only complaint I have is that the pants should’ve been a little baggy, but otherwise it was awesome. The blue in contrast to the purple was really smart.

[@Chickenman161]

killed it dude. That final colouring step blew my mind.

[@VinciWare]

This was so cool/informative. You’ve got a new subscriber here!

[@narwhal3638]

dude this was awesome! I can't wait for you to do more!

[@dynamicsketch]

Working on the shades and highlights of a sprite in gray scale seems like a good way to see how it all translates before applying colors. Good tip.

[@makotoyuki345]

The final results are looking good Also do you think you could do a style swap between Final Fantasy VI and Tales of Destiny DC?

[@HyperKaito]

Cool idea

[@T-Rav7973]

This was so fun. And learning about colors is helpful.

[@sinistarman]

loved this video, might need to start taking notes if I watch more. you're an amazing pixel artist.

[@Myuutantobasuta]

Damn, I've never seen anyone have such a good Grasp on X4's style.

[@Rysuko1]

I had no idea using gray tones could help choose the colors better in the end. What a fantastic idea, thank you so much for the video.

[@mindelofortes12345]

Man these pixels art videos are always so interesting. Nice work James 👌🏼

[@guilhermefeitosa7560]

That's satisfying as hell, nice job

[@ChromeColossus]

Boy this was a fun, random video I was recommended, as a pixel art and Mega Man lover. Thanks!

[@JustAPaperface]

I hope you do more of these! Very nice vid!

[@orangebandit-skyrim5415]

First off, you did a fantastic job (like always) Brandon! Secondly, I think it'd be really interesting to see a whole game mockup of one of these styles. For example, a Mega Man X4 level in that old 8-Bit style and vice versa. To repeat my earlier statement, fantastic job Brandon and keep up the amazing work! (:

[@ulrickai]

Oh neat. I quite like the idea of that style swap, looks like a fun project to play with. Great work as always~

[@Mattakattak]

That's a VERY good exercise! Useful and fun to watch. I think I might start to try this to get better!

[@sebastianricks9459]

So COOL! Thank you for sharing!

[@senormarston]

What an amazing kind of art is the pixel art. Congratulations, this video was great!

[@hellovik]

Great work! These are two games that I played alot of - so awesome to see them swapped.

[@rpvarela]

3:16 - Tankman, is that you?! Jokes aside, great work as always, Brandon! :)

[@Mattno.777]

Newgrounds

[@whoelsebutmeofcoursei]

Knowing Tankman from FNF: broke Knowing Tankman from Newgrounds: woke

[@elluciano5808]

UGH

[@djjacoby1511]

This is Major Awesome! Great Job! i just wish a whole game could be made i would play it. Artwork on another level!

[@Amieee]

Amazing work like always! So inspiring, thanks Brandon!

[@oscaroni5104]

This is actually crazy cool, and gives me a good idea on sprite art style, especially related to the systems they came out on

[@catcorpusinfernale4870]

Dude you pixel art style it's so cool! Thanks for share it

[@onetouchtwo]

Going out of your way to minimize sprite stacking to one tile is great. I think that's the exact attitude to go into with console faithful pixel art like this. Much appreciated!!

[@sahi8321]

Wow, actual good recommandation from KZbin. I love this concept and both those sprites look great ! Thanks for your work

[@muhammetislambedirbeyoglu3135]

Woow both was so beautiful, remarkable work!

[@TigeriPlaysGames]

ok, this video on its own really helped me get more of a feel for how to do some great pixel art. these sprites look really nice, too :D

[@Cannonbreed]

This is a really cool vid, you really nailed the style switch!

[@SethKotta]

Absolutely brilliant. As far as swaps go, first thing that came to mind was crossing Super Mario Bros with Sonic and Knuckles. Because that's the kind of out of the box thinking you can expect from me.

[@crupplemcsplits792]

I think that Mario bros 3 would offer a cooler style to try and replicate, the original ones style is just not that interesting in my opinion. But Mario and Luigi in a sonic sprite style would be really cool.

[@11sveden12]

I hope folks appreciate the amount of skill needed to do something like this as it is not easy. Tremendous work. The sprites look great.

[@nilsnoske6460]

That was nice. I enjoyed that. Would love to see more content like this. :) More Sprite Swaps! ^^

[@ShelbyAQD]

That's pretty cool! I might give something like this a try myself. Thanks for the inspiration.

[@Shamazya]

Great video! I think that if you plopped the final result into a mock-screenshot of each respective game it would really show off how in-style they are.

[@SakariyaMustaf]

Got this recommended randonly. Subscribed. Awesome video ideas

[@catto49yearsago16]

i didn't knew this channel before, now im amazed

[@ruolbu]

Oh wow! Could you make more videos of this kind? I really love the concept and it's soo cool to see a quality sprite of a well known character in a style that they never existed in.

[@tanookilondon]

Brandon, I just want to say, as an artist, I love your channel. Your videos are chill, and informative and the end results always look great. Thank you for making such awesome content :)

[@saultoons]

Whoa, that's super cool. The results turned out really nicely! The pose on the ninja guy is my favourite part, so crazy how flipping it made it look really dynamic. I would also love to see a more realistic proportioned mega man game like the one you designed here, maybe even with a super gritty world too! Awesome as usual :D

[@BJGpixel]

Thanks dude! Haha yeah gritty Mega Man would be an interesting look; I've seen something similar done with Mario artwork and it completely changes the perspective of what's going on in that world 😂

[@saultoons]

@@BJGpixel Bowser really messed up in that world hahaha!

[@018FLP]

I loved this!! Perfect translation

[@jupitervideos7702]

Mike Tyson's Punch Out x Doom And as always incredible job

[@DrBIeed]

Excellent work! Looks great.

[@sephiros9999]

This was really interesting and cool, congrats ;)

[@TonyTheTGR]

This is really super cool for demakes/remakes.

[@koshaz3x]

Both look amazing, kudos my friend.

[@chrisbaygin8914]

That is really awesome work!! Ryu the way i had him in myhead! :P

[@Sherdderworld]

I really like this idea a lot I hope you make it an ongoing series

[@Nupkan]

I really enjoyed this subscribed!

[@diegomedeiros4671]

This was such a cool idea. Was very interesting seeing how you did that, and the end result, at least for me, is really closed to the original style. I was thinking since you said about the katana how you would do bc the katana would be mostly hiden behind, amazing what changing the pose made.

[@OmkaraHellcore]

Love it. Really talented edit! Now I just need both games swapped as well 😋

[@David0gden]

Great video. Very inspirational. I will enjoy being subscribed.

[@bcbboard1475]

Really liked this video. I'd like to see you do some more in the future.

[@SleepyReapy32]

I appreciate that you actually understand "X" is an entirely separate character from "Mega Man" and didn't just refer to him as "Mega Man" throughout the video. It's the small things that count

[@josiahf1041]

Amazing work my dude

[@CasteloOfficial]

WOWWWW, OMG, very amazing work!

[@welovetochill964]

dude this is AMAZING!

[@mihsan660]

this was really cool to see!

[@HyperKaito]

Congrats, Brandon! You have +100.000 subs!

[@leapingfrog1159]

Amazing work!

[@igodreamer7096]

Cool work, dude

[@DizzyQuanto]

I’m just learning pixel art, and I’ve never really understood concepts like line work. Watching you do these pieces was eye opening! Is there a video on how to understand line work and proper ratios?

[@c7po457]

Two of my favorite game characters of all time. This was awesome!

[@spideychris_]

Really loved this video! Also, breath of the wild into an SNES pixelart would be really cool to see someday!

[@hebertdesouza1129]

Awesome work, mate. More of that, please.

[@khrashingphantom9632]

Wow this amazing. I'm not sure how I got here, but I'm glad I stayed. Awesome video. Can we all take a moment to remember how absolutely legit the Mega Man X4 soundtrack is! Lol. Absolutely worth putting it on PS1 for that alone. LMFAO.

[@TheBeLuvdTRex]

This is amazing. That Ryu drawing is top notch and not only that the X drawing looks perfectly transitioned.

[@humblehat4347]

F-Zero(SNES) and Iridon 3D(GBA) Both games feature quite heavily detailed jetcraft.

[@JoshRedfearn]

Awesome work!

[@lizafrench8455]

THAT'S AWESOME. My brother does pixel art. Gonna mention this idea to him.

[@CarecaRetrogamer]

Really good, man... I'd really like to see a new, 16 bit Ninja Gaider game using that style... O.o

[@EpicallyAverageDude]

I think it's really interesting how your 8-bit X turned out compared to X's official 8-bit sprites from _MegaMan Xtreme._ Great work!

[@hobodefender3476]

God, I love that Ryu sprite so much. Please add that to a game or mod or something. This is awesome.

[@frownmastr]

oh man, theses are so cool. wish i could see them animated

[@mydudestudios6244]

I know this isn't much of a revolution, but I'd love to see a style swap between the original Sonic 1/2/CD and Sonic 3 & Knuckles