My inner artist wants out, sort of

So I hereby admit to being in love with pixel art. So in love, in fact, that I am going to learn how to do it. Stay tuned for the results of my experiments. Have no idea what I mean? See fantasy/floral examples here (the top image) and here (the top image), and altogether different examples here (horror movie scenes!). Like I need another hobby—I know, I know. But I’m a visual, color-saturation kind of gal (did I mention my room has purple walls? And fuschia and orange stuff in it? It’s gorgeous, I swear), and pixel art entrances me with the colors. Yep, entrances. Add to that the fact that the kind I plan to do entails creating images of gardens, animals, witches, fantasy scenes…oh my! Yep, right up my alley, as they say.

My mother, who’s an artist, tells me I could paint like she does if I’d just start doing it. First of all, HA! No way. She’s *incredibly* talented in a way I’m not—I can’t take a pen or brush and make pictures worth looking at. My mom’s had her art in galleries, is regularly commissioned to do various pieces…nope, not my artistic row to hoe. Second, I don’t like the idea of wasting canvas and paint as I learn, haha. That can be expensive and time-consuming. I already spend time (and money, for internet access) on the computer, so opening Photoshop and coloring in little boxes is “free” and just the thing to give my inner artist an outlet without requiring extra cash or space. Ok, ok, so I’ll be buying a few “outlines” and such from pixel artists I like, but all that’s chump change compared to buying “real,” tangible art supplies.

But after I learn to make pixel art I’m proud of, I do want to look into ways to take the pieces out of the computer and put them into a tangible form. I’ve seen some pixel art successfully turned into cross-stitch, and I’ll experiment with printing the images (although I suspect it’ll lose something in the translation).

After I work on my book today for a bit, I’m going to start pixeling…I’ll post results later.

UPDATED: My first effort!

Well, skyclad IS the only way to fly, afterall…

Ok, so she’s not clothed yet, lol! I haven’t yet tried to make clothes. The “base” of the doll is the Trixie base from Critter Pixels, and the broom, hair, hat, and moon were all made by me! Now, this is a work in progress, and it will be a “sigtag” when finished for me to use at the pixel art forum Eden Enchanted. I’m going to add more to it, including, haha, clothes…as well as some other accents and such. More updates later…