scratch tutorial
This is how to make a pixel art on Photoshop. But you could always use MS paint, nothing I'm gonna do that's gonna be different on Totally different from Paint. Don't as me what MS Paint it, honestly. All screenshots will be taken in Photoshop CS3.Sketching!
Make your canvas size quite big, this will help you draw without having to enlarge your canvas all the time. I suggest 400x400. First of all, make a sketch, this will be a small outline for your art. You can do so by cligking wither the little pencil icon in Paint or the paintbrush icon in Paint. In photoshop, try right clicking on the brush tool and selecting Pencil, then making the size of your tool 1px (the smallest brush possible).Screenie
Now Go back to your image and lighten the lineart. You can do this in PS by going to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation> then adjust lightness and ONLY LIGHTNESS. This will make the sketch lighter for you, which will make drawing over the lines a bit easier on the eyes. For Paint users, just go to colours > edit colours and move your eyedropper around the custom colours to get a ligter colour, then right click the colour you've just mixed then left click the colour that the sketch is (if it's red, click red xD) and then click the rubber/eraser tool and hold down your left mouse button while moving your mouse back and forth, this will recolour your lines as the lighter colour.
Screenie
the real deal!
Now for the fun part, outline your sketch! Okie, so if you're using PS then all you do is create a new layer, and you can follow your sketch from there, don't worry if it's a bit messy to start with, you can go over it. Unfortunately I forgot to screenie my example of a rough outline, so you'll just have to bear with me. MS Paint users, don't worry! You can just go over your sketch! make your first colour swatch (the little squares next to your colour tray) and then right click the white colour. Then just make your outline from there. Once your lineart is 'done', you can now erase all the pixels that appear to be messing up your image, there should be NO L shapes in your outline, no right angled pixels. So you take your eraser tool on PS and erase all your extra pixels, on paint just keep right clicking on the pixels, if your colour swatch for right click is white, you'll be able to use white to delete those little pixels and your lineart will be clean! Goodygood!Screenie
Once you've did your lineart, on PS you can simply erase your layer that your sketch is on, if that layer is entitled 'Background' and cannot be erased, right click the layer and select 'Layer from background...' then click Ok then you may erase! just click your erase tool and get rid of that icy white background!! On MS Paint, remember the sketch method? the lightening? Just eyedrop your sketch's colour and select white as your secondary colour, then you can repeat the method you used to recolour the sketch to delete the sketch! Cool, eh?
Screenie
Colouring
Okay, I admit it here and now, I'm NOT the best colourer in the world, my shading skills are indeed crap XD But I try! And so should you!! Okay so let's be cool here and for you lucky duck MS Paint users you can just like, use the fill tool. But PS users have to actually coloiur ¬¬ Because we suck! So here's the trick! Go around the outline with the pencil tool and when you're done, right click the Gradient tool and select paint bucket (or something) and fill the colours =D Goodyy!This->to this!!
Shading!
Oh, here's a good part. Now, for shading, you have to things to consider, [i]light source[/i] and [i]shades[/i]. Think about it, most things look ugly with really dark shading, if your shading is too dark the image will lose its shine! So you can't get too dark! and if your light sourse comes from the top right hand corner, you would make your shades ove away from the source. Confusing...? Well, looks, if you were walking through the town and you suddenly had shading on your face even though the sun was setting in line with your face, you would be a little converned right? Not only would the world end, but the world would appear to have the artistic abilities of a vegetable.So we're gonna have shades now, you can have loads of different shades, but it's best to keep it under 4. Most shading needs to be simple and smooth. So here's what you're basically looking for.screenie
See, there's a sun here! lolsun, it's so awesomely amazingly drawn. But ignoring the awesomely amazingly artistically challenged sun, look at the image, see the light source? where the sun shines, there's more light, in areas the sun cannot reach, the shading comes in. This is also an example of how simple your shading could be. Only two shades were used in this image, both going only 10 under the RGB number. In Paint, you can edit the RGB count on paint by going to colours > edit colours and replacing the cnumber with a number that's ten below the one that's there, so basically it's 255 to 245, do this with all the possible colours, you cannot go lower than 0 though P: Once you did that, you can edit your lineart. Again.
Recolouring the lineart!
Okay so recolouring your lineart is easy for Paint users, just go to your colours and go 10 below tyour darkest shade on your image and do the recolouring trick mentioned twice before in this tutorial.Again, PS users, you're gonna have to do it the hard way. Gcreate a new layer and make sure it goes over your lineart layer. Then holt down the alt button and move your cursor between your lineart layer and your new layer and let go of the mouse button, then get the brush tool, get your lineart colour (again, 10 shades below your darkest shading colour) and go over your lines! simple? Okay, maybe not as simple as the luckies on Paint, but hey! Here's one I made earlier:
screenie
Reeeeeeeeesult!
Heyho! Now you're all done with your image! now if you want to make your image transparent, pick a colour on MS Paint that's NOT in your image and make it the background colour, then go to Iaza and load your image, select Transparency and then select your colour. To save Iaza from going really really slow, save the image to your own server and upload it to Photobucket, then you can post your image anywhere! =D Goody!Now on Photoshop, just save the image, if the background is white with grey squares then save it as PNG and you will then have your own pixel art!
Want to see my result?
There you go. Enjoy! and good job! keep up the practice!
The Golden Rule!
NEVER SAVE YOUR IMAGE AS A JPEG FORMAT, ALWAYS SAVE IT AS A PNG, YOU CAN DO THIS BY GOING TO SAVE AS, THEN GO TO THE DROPDOWN MENU UNDER THE FILE NAME AND SELECTING PNG.THIS IS IMPORTANT. PLEASE REMEMBER THIS RULE.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy this tutorial!! [b]Credit to Ayla for the following![/b] May I suggest that when saving you select File --> save for web ---> PNG? At the bottom of the screen you should be able to see two different file sizes. The one on the left is your original file and the one on the right is your saved for web file. Great for if you want to keep your sig on PUK small.
Thank you for the help there!