fragmer's adventures in pixelart

[fragmer]

Many people hold pixel art in low regard because they think it's either all:

1. Just a pixel-by-pixel copy of some image found on the internet, or
2. Done by a bot and/or automated tool

Well, I thought that there is still room for creativity and skill in pixel art. So I decided to challenge the stereotype by creating my pixelart from a vector reference, manually pixelating it, and building it all by hand. Pixelating ended up taking about 3 hours...

(click for full size).

First I created a Minecraft block-color palette for Photoshop to simplify conversion a bit. Simple conversion produced pitiful results. I tried gamma correction (matching Minecraft's white block to image's white), and it was a bit better. The dither gave it that ugly botted look though. Removing the dither, it looked better. But all the outlines were still crooked, and colors were dulled. So I ended up manually merging three palette conversions, done at different gammas, and spent another hour editing it by hand.

After that, it was just a lot of patient block clicking, with only slight changes to the reference. The whole project took about 8 hours. And I think it's totally worth it.

[Shintengin]

Amazing.!, pixelart takes alot of patience, and creativity,
15/10 on a 10 scale.!

[Fehzor]

Nice! I never have the patience to follow a template, or do anything before hand... my 1 (good) pixel art is the eyes on my world, and I just halfway made that up as I went along.

[PyroPyro]

Great work as always and thanks for the Photoshop palette i was looking for that.

[Intertoothh]

Pyro, why does your avatar reminds me of tankgirl
Good movie tho.

[PyroPyro]

Pyro, why does your avatar reminds me of tankgirl
Good movie tho.

Well it looks kinda like her, but i just found this randomy on the net... But i love Tank girl! <3
> Good movie tho.
No, a bad movie... you need to see the comic!



also sorry for the offtopic talk fragmer ._.

[lucky_pierre]

Going right back off topic;
Never read Tank Girl, but now I'm going to because of that "Charlie don't surf" on her helmet.
That is pretty excellent.

Now then, how 'bout them pixels?

[fragmer]

Another day, another pony.

Original image. Initial conversion. Final pixelated version, after cleanup & touching up.

Final result:

[Shintengin]

Another day, another pony.

Original image. Initial conversion. Final pixelated version, after cleanup & touching up.

Final result:

Awww..That one's adorable.!
P.S You watch DeStorm on youtube? =P "Another day, another challenge"

[PyroPyro]

Oh god love the last one! Whats her name?

[fragmer]

Another one. Had to use 3 layers in places (white/black + water + shadow) to get that mane color.

Original. Initial conversion (didn't work so well). Finished reference (lots of manual work this time).

Final result (click for full size):

[fragmer]

Another little one. Simpler than others, but still pretty fun to make. And yes, she's wearing full zipline gear.

Original. Initial conversion. Final reference image. Building process.

Aaaaand the result (click for full size):

[KingCrab]

Are you taking requests for ponies we made?

[fragmer]

After I run out of main characters, sure

[KingCrab]

You should do Flint and Hitpony

Found Here: http://forum.fcraft.net/viewtopic.php?f ... 5&start=60

I can see a youtube video advertising fCraft with every person personified with a pony

[fragmer]

Next one, part 1: pixelating. Took about an hour. Original. Pixelated image.



Now, to actually build the thing...

[fragmer]

The last 3 pieces mentioned in this thread have now been lost due to Lim's backup fuckup.

[Lim-Dul]

Hey, the Backup system didn't work at the time of the Plesk update due to our guest system being moved to a new host machine.

[KingCrab]

The last 3 pieces mentioned in this thread have now been lost due to Lim's backup fuckup.

Most everyone lost something. My pixelart was lost, Ollie and others lost Imperial City. Almost every personal world was lost.

Ah well, Shit happens sometimes


P.S.: If you have a world in which you wanna save and use WOM, from this day forth I suggest using the "Dump Level" feature for WOM.

[fragmer]

I'll be remaking the pieces I lost. One out of three done already.

Edit: 2 out of 3 redone

Edit: all redone!

[VocalizedBoar]

I stalked fragmer for a few hours and made this sub-par time lapse of him building. Feel free to criticize my screenshot-taking skills.
http://youtu.be/J0pwGCb-37I

[fragmer]

Thanks, VocalizedBoar, that was neat!

Meanwhile, I made another quick one. Colors didn't map to Minecraft's palette very well, but I did my best. (click images for full size)

[fragmer]

Finished another one!

Original (huge image warning). Converted for pixelart (video of the process above). Building process.

[Mozilra]

Looks epic, and it's pretty big so 10/10

[fragmer]

Resurrecting the old thread. I'm finally getting around to finish the remaining two ponies (Rarity and Sweetie Bell). Rarity pixelation work in progress:

1) Original image. 2) Initial resizing / automated color matching.


3) Manual palette conversion, basic cleanup, dithering. 4) Final cleanup done.

[fragmer]

Finished!


Next, the last of the CMC, Sweetie Belle. Work in progress.

[fragmer]

To give this thread some closure, I should probably say that I finished the mane six, the Crusaders, and Princess Celestia. You can check it out by joining "PixelPonies" map, or see final screenshots here.

[JustOnePanda]

Very nice frag!