Pixel Artists on Tools and Techniques for Creating Pixel Art

My Experience with pixel art started over a decade ago, originally inspired by games like 'Papers Please', 'Hyper Light Drifter' and 'Day of The Tentacle'.

Enthralled with the medium I began practicing with the hopes of someday developing my own game! After my game designs course at college, I began my journey as a freelance artist working professionally to provide my skill to global projects.

I specialise in characters, vehicles, environments and tile sets. My work has also brought me to 3D and 2.5D Styles of pixel art. Although these are only limited to my experience from being the commonly requested, any unique requests are always welcome in expanding my repertoire.

In short yes, absolutely.

Although I developed my own personal style, being versatile is Important. I believe brining a unique identity to your work can not only help it stand out but also convey the emotion and feeling you hope to imbue your project with. I pride myself on working meticulously on developing a style that best suits the intended vision.

Of course I can!

I have displayed some of my favourites here.

You can always see new client work on my gig page
https://www.fiverr.com/toogooddesigns

My Artstation is curated from my best work
https://www.artstation.com/ethantoogood/albums/7148773

Grid paper is a good place to start, as I come from traditional art roots, I still like to use a tactile medium when it comes to concepting my designs, getting the creative juices to flow.

Using a mouse and keyboard, I have worked in Photoshop from the start. It is a versatile program containing a lot of useful tools for animating, formatting and organizing assets.

File format tends to be PNG for the lossless compression. Resolution is dependent on the project requirements. However, I always maintain the same Pixel Density throughout a project whether it be working with a team or on my own.

Animation is some of the most fun I have with pixel art, I love brining designs to life. Initially starting with stop motion animation then evolving my digital skills to 2D art and now beyond, animation is at the core of most of my work.

Animation also has a variety of styles which enhance the type of feeling you want your work to convey, be it smooth and clean, exaggerated and cartoony or anything in between, I like to nail down a style that best suits the artwork and vibe of the project but also balance the time and budget to produce the best possible result.

Absolutely. I am very passionate about games as it was the reason I started my professional career . The pixel art medium allows for a range of creativity to be expressed and I have had the pleasure to working in a variety of genres like, horror, RPG, rogue-like, platformers, top down, card games .

I am always ready for a new inspiring project. Working commonly on character, vehicles, tile sets and backgrounds, yet I love to refresh my work with something new and enjoy the process of working in unfamiliar areas, allowing me to expand and branch out my skills.

Time and experience are my main factors for pricing, simply put smaller the scale of work the cheaper. I pride myself for being meticulous and efficient over everything I work on which intern produces a pixel perfect result without sacrificing the quality of work.

Communication in the initial briefing and throughout the design process is a main factor in producing the best result. A core understanding of the design foundation is key to getting on the right path from beginning. Regular updates and a comprehensive breakdown of the reasons you made certain design decisions communicating how much thought you put into every detail of their work and that you are diligent in covering every aspect they require.

Make sure you have a clear understanding of what you like and dislike, depending on the scope of a project you may create the visual language with them, or you may already have it, but communicating your thoughts, wants and needs coherently and efficiently can go a long way to getting your artist on the same brain wave as you.