What's so special about pixel art?

[SuperBiasedMan]

Hrmmm. Am I giving game playing people too much benefit of the doubt? Alternatively I might be investing too much though into the idea that stuff can be drastically tonally and stylistically different. I've never released a financial product so it's not something I've had to worry about much yet. If push came to shove tho I'd still use it, cause my non pixel art is just far more aesthetically ugly and off-putting.

[dium]

Awesome article, and every point made is convincing from a practical business-sense point of view.

 

From a more personal point of view, hearing him essentially say that an artist that presents a challenging aesthetic that the viewer doesn't understand has failed as an artist is depressing as hell.

[Spenny]

That article is interesting, but I feel he misses his own point. He writes:

 

My job was to make Auro’s art polished, inviting, and clear to the audience, not to also educate the audience that pixel art is a deliberate style.

 

Pixel art can't really be appreciated unless the viewer understands its limitations. He makes this point with his King of Fighters example. If you want the players to understand the limitation, you crank your resolution way down, and you show everybody this digital mosaic you have made. If you want polished, inviting, and clear art, vectors or painting is something people understand inherently, so do that. His result is clearly an ugly compromise between the two ends.

[Twig]

Do you really think it looks ugly? I think it looks nice.

[dium]

Practical crowd-pleasing arguments aside, I don't agree that high resolution pixel art is an ugly compromise. He spends much of the article pointing out the kind of interesting, beautiful art that's come out of applying pixel art techniques to images with higher and higher pixel densities. KoF sprites look amazing once you've got it through to yourself that the visible pixels aren't a mistake... they look amazing before that too, even if the pixels are distracting. This and this definitely aren't the same aesthetic, but do you really think the latter would look "better" if it looked more like a TV cartoon?

 

(I'm lukewarm about the look of Auro myself, but none of my negative opinions have much to do with it being pixel art)

[Spenny]

Do you really think it looks ugly? I think it looks nice.

 

I think it is good illustration but bad pixel art. This is solely based off the screenshot on the page, for what its worth, but I find the sprites edges and other lines are kind of rough looking. Small details, like the eyes, are a little off putting too.

[Twig]

Ah, okay. I advise you to click through the iOS/Android link to see some of the screenshots, where it's basically a completely different style.

 

edit: actually here's the android link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.DinofarmAuro&hl=en

 

also just realized there is an actual screenshot lower in the article so nevermind

 

it looks nice ):

[Spenny]

I think it's good design and illustration, but I look at his example of the anime guy's eye vs Rambo's eye, then look at the eyes of his characters and wonder if he took his own advice on creating pixel art. There are lots of small things that really stop it from getting the extra oomph you get out of pixel art.

 

If you like it, that's cool! Subjectivity is great!

[SuperBiasedMan]

Ah, okay. I advise you to click through the iOS/Android link to see some of the screenshots, where it's basically a completely different style.

 

edit: actually here's the android link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.DinofarmAuro&hl=en

 

also just realized there is an actual screenshot lower in the article so nevermind

 

it looks nice ):

Either the screenshots are resized awkwardly or it certainly has some problems with it.

 

I'm generally more of a fan of low res stuff that makes it blatantly obvious it's pixel art not pixellated but I don't feel that strongly about it.

[Twig]

I suspect there is some always resizing/compression issues happening, but who knows. Looks mostly fine to me.

I dunno I just think super high res pixel art is still pixel art, just with more fidelity to it. Like going from nes to snes to whatever. I can tell it's still pixel art and I appreciate it as such.

I like basically every approach to pixel art. I've done chubby stuff and it's fun and I've tried detailed stuff and it's fun. And looking at both is fun. Fun fun fun!