Isometric Pixel Art Guide Home
Isometric Pixel Art Guide
Chapter 1: Introduction
About this Guide
First off, this guide is not completely an original work. The original Complete Guide to Isometric Pixel Art was written by Rhys Davies, who decided to rewrite the entire guide and sell it. I found that the basic guide was extremely helpful, but really did need a rewrite. So I rewrote the guide, and made it available online.
Hope you enjoy.
Isometry
In mathematics, an isometry is a distance-preserving isomorphism between metric spaces. An isometric projection is one method of visually representing a three dimensional object in two dimensions, and is generally used for visualizing engineering drawings in pseudo-3D.
Got all that? That's a very technical definition, and for the purposes of pixel art, we don't care about any of that other than to say it looks really cool when done correctly.
Isometric Pixel Art
While isometric projections have their use in visualizing engineering drawings, isometric pixel art is a style of digital art that originated from limited video game display capabilities, but truly found its voice with the underground art scene, as many art forms tend to. This art style is strongly typefied by old games like Q-Bert or Zaxxon, some of the first mass-market games to use this perspective. While most isometric pixel art is cartoonish in nature, some artists can achieve impressive near-photorealistic effects in their art.
Tools Required (Software)
If you're reading this from a Windows system, or really any modern operating system, you most likely have all the tools you need already installed. Contrary to what you might think, even epic pixel masterpieces can (and frequently are) created simple software like Microsoft Paint. Paint contains all of the basic tools necessary for creating pixel art, but if you are experienced in Photoshop, you will definitely have an advantage in reusability of graphics and the speed at which you can work. For an artist just beginning, Photoshop might present a sharp learning curve, especially with regards to pixel art, as there are many default settings that need to be changed beforehand.
This tutorial will mostly cover techniques in Microsoft Paint. The steps for pixel art are just as applicable to Photoshop or another full-featured graphics package, and the benefits are numerous. Proper use of layers and transparency can lead to effects that you just can't achieve using Paint* alone.
*Note: You totally can, but people who do that kind of crap have no need of a tutorial, honestly.
To access Paint on most Windows computers, do the following: click the Start button, open the Programs folder, the Accessories folder, then the Paint program.
You're now ready to create pixel art. But if you ever intend on showing anybody your masterpieces, you should be able to convert them to a format suitable for the web. If you're working from the full color palette that Windows gives you, you might want to use a full-color format like PNG. If you've limited your palette to just a few (as in, less than 128 or so), GIF offers great compression. IrfanView is an excellent image viewer and converter that will allow you to convert any image to almost any other format quickly and easily.
Ideas/Research
A good way to start any new art piece is to do some initial research about any ideas you have about what you are going to draw. Write down anything that comes into your head during the day and when you are ready to create a new piece, simply select an idea from the list. This can allow you to jump right into a piece, rather than sitting there with a blank canvas, trying to think of what to draw.
Once you've got your idea, it's sometimes still good to research it before sketching it out. This can be a good way to get examples of hidden details in a scene, building elements, or be introduced to new concepts. For example, if you are creating a building with deco elements, you might want to look for references like the Chrysler building, and other significant deco structures.