Some direction

Looking at dong pixel art, there are several routes I could take, all of which I need to make a decision on!

So to pad out my reflective diary, here is some talk of some pixel art styles I have looked at!

Style wise, there are two main areas I’ve looked at.
One, of which I have lots of experience, is Simple Isometric.

Yup, I did that. In all its copyright infringing glory.

The other is a little more interesting. Designing specifically within limits.
An example of this would be if I where designing for the 8 bit era.
My colour pallet would be limited to the same 64 colours, I would have to work with 16x16 or 16x32 tiles for each sprite, and each could only use 3 colours (+ Transparency), also requiring a solid coloured background.
This of course doesn’t help me for the modern gaming industry. (It might be more suited if I where doing a fine art degree.)

Zelda II, an 8 bit game. Note how each item uses 3 colours

While I am still experimenting, one of my initial ideas for the first semester is to create a simple level block map, and dress it in several different styles. Perhaps even for completely different game genres?
This would go quite a way to helping with my environment design skills, teaching me to ‘dress’ a set.

Finally, there is something I would like to do, perhaps later in the course.
A fully animated scene. Here is an example created by Eboy for Christian Aid Week and aired on TV.



Side note, there is also the more classic 3 colour pixel art, or the more advanced 16 bit pixel art graphics.