After getting my feet wet in the arts departement by participating in the Splinterlands emote contest a few weeks ago, I decided to do another one of the GIF animations. This time I decided to paint the bewitching Pixie in pixel art style. Just going for a more simple design for practise purposes - definitly not because hot.
Creating the
main frame
The first stroke of a painting is the hardest part, so I decided to start with something simple like the eyes. More or less an orange circle with a thick black outline.
*First the eyes and some basic hair patterns. The mouth is not flipped, yet. Maybe this would have been the better way.*
*Working on multiple parts at the same time - whatever inspired me.*
From there I randomly added different pieces like hair, dress and body.
Obviously there was quite a bit of trial and error, but luckily the digital paper is rather forgiving and the eraser doesn't make a rubber mess all over the place.
Every now and then I made a copy of the frame and continued working on the copy. This makes it easier to revert if I don't like where it went and also allows me to create a little creation gif. It's interesting to see how some parts worked first try and some got reworked over time.
I kept the pose quite similar to the original, so I could practise while having some source of inspiration, if I got stuck at some point.
The original artwork shows both wings from the front, which kinda bugged me. The front wing was easy, but I wanted to achieve a more agressive backwards-bend effect on the other wing, so you mostly see the backside. I tried working with a lot of shadows, but it took quit some time to get a satisfying result.
The fun and more complex part of pixel art is the animation. I decided to go for the classic 'blowing-kisses' pose and only a few mild movements on her hand, head and leg.
Obviously the wings must be animated, but I decided to draw her standing instead of flying, which means I didn't need a full flying motion.
*frame 2*
*frame 4*
I didn't want to go for a crazy background to keep the focus on the pixie, but something needed to be done about the naked background and so I added some sparkly pixiedust to finish the GIF.
Some light and shadow effects to polish it off and voila!
There is plenty more potential for animation and tweaking everytime I look at it, but I figured I had to finish this project at some point.
I was thinking about getting a drawing pad, as painting with a mouse is kinda paint-full, but I'm not sure if I would use it enough to justify this investment. That's pretty much the reason I have to stick to simple pixel art for now.
Original Splinterlands Art