I Learned How to Make Pixel Art Characters

In this challenge, I continued my journey of learning how to make pixel art by learning how to make some simple characters. I used the classic NES Mega Man sprite as a base to create these characters for this blog's about page banner. The characters visually represent the variety of challenges I want to take on for this blog project.

I decided to do this based on the advice from the pixel art Youtuber Brandon James Greer. In his video on how he got started making pixel art and what he recommends others do when starting, he recommended an exercise involving the sprite from the original Mega Man video game on the NES.

He recommends starting pixel art by working with low resolution images and restricted color palettes. Basically, like most things people want to learn, he recommends to start small and to not overwhelm yourself with too many choices and possibilities. The Mega Man exercise gives you an established template to work off of that is low resolution. You don't have to worry about coming up with your own style and proportions when you are working off of something as a template. The restrictions can be very helpful in getting started. As is often the case in life when faced with an overwhelming amount of possible choices, it can be good to restrict yourself and give yourself extremely clear goals and rules to play by.

He recommends editing the Mega Man sprite in particular (as opposed to other iconic characters like Mario, Sonic, etc.) because of its clarity and its usability as a "blank canvas". It features distinct boldly outlined sections, a clear area for the face, the head, the hands, the feet, the torso, etc. The character does not have any wildly unique features, so it can be easily shaped into almost any humanoid character you want. The character has distinct areas for gloves, the torso, the legs, a belt region, a helmet area that can easily be replaced with hair or a hat, a face that is only two big expressive eyes and a simple mouth, and shoes. Greer says that the big expressive eyes are one of the reasons that the Mega Man sprite is so easy to edit and work with. The eyes lend themselves well to customization and shaping a personality.

The Mega Man sprite is a great canvas, but creating your own characters will most likely lead you to having to come up with your own design solutions for certain features. By using the Mega Man sprite as a canvas, it teaches you how to think about how to convey your goal in the style of Mega Man. It forces you to ask, "How do I stay consistent with Mega Man's design?". This can be helpful as you start to learn pixel art to have some rules to play by as you come up with your own designs.

I used the Mega Man sprite as a template to create three characters for my blog's about page. I wanted to give my about page some character and color by decorating it with something that conveyed the spirit of the blog. I decided I wanted to represent the wide variety of skills I take on for this blog project. I decided on an overhead press to represent physical challenges, cooking with a wok to represent creative projects, and playing guitar to represent technical skills. I thought these three images would look good together and convey the sense of positive growth energy I want on my blog.

For the weightlifter character, I drew a weighted barbell directly over his head. I just drew a line of black pixels for the barbell and two columns of gray pixels on each of the ends of the barbell to represent the weight plates. I drew in Mega Man's shirt and pants area with flesh color and left the underwear area and the boots Mega Man's blue color to give him a classic strongman look. The hardest part of designing this character was extending Mega Man's arms overhead. His head is relatively large compared to his body and I had to stretch his arms much farther than they do in the regular Mega Man sprite. I wanted them extended in a Y shape to separate more from the head too, which lengthened them also. They are perhaps a bit jagged and look too long for his body, but I think they get the job done well enough.

For the chef character I added a chef's hat and a wok with flames coming out of it. I filled in the torso, belt, and pants area with white to give him a chef's uniform. I made the arm extend out as if he were holding the wok. To stay consistent with Mega Man's design, I made sure to boldly outline the chef's hat and the wok. I tried outlining the flames with black, but found that it looked wrong. I looked up more Mega Man sprites and found that not all of the sprites were necessarily bolded, so I left the flames un-outlined. I added little shadows to the chef's hat to make it look like a classic chef hat with creases.

The guitar player character was the hardest one to make. I had to add a prop that covered a significant portion of the character's body, which broke the template more so than the others. I made a guitar shape with bold outlines for the body, neck, and head of the guitar to try to stay consistent with the Mega Man style design. Because I was working within the constraints of such a low level of detail I decided to leave off the strings and opted to just add little dots to represent the pickups of the guitar. I decided to make the character's legs and feet smaller and more spread apart to fit the guitar nicely and make it stand out more since it is the main feature of this particular sprite character. I also had to position the arms to look like they were playing guitar.

In general, I felt much more comfortable making pixel art during the course of this project than during my first project. My workflow was much more efficient and I knew my way around Aseprite well. I used the selection tool a lot this time around and was easily moving sections of pixels around and manipulating them. For example, I would add new rows and columns to increase the size of a shape by precisely selecting groups of pixels and expanding them outwards, then filling in the gaps with new pixels. I created separate files for my recreation of the original Mega Man sprite, the three characters I based off of that sprite, and my about banner and screenshot for this blog post that combined all of the scaled up characters together. I resized, selected, and moved everything around with ease.

Overall, I think this was a fantastic exercise for me as a beginner to pixel art. Using Mega Man as a template is a great way to learn the logic of a successful design from more experienced artists. Its low resolution and clearly defined "blank canvas" sections reduce the intimidation and overwhelm of not knowing where to begin with designing a character. It is a great starting point to learn how to design with pixel art. I am happy with my characters I have made for my about page, and I recommend this exercise to those interested in starting pixel art.