What is pixel art?

Remember popping your favorite game into your NES or Sega Genesis or Atari 2600 as a kid? I personally spent hours playing Sonic the Hedgehog. All those old games, up through the SNES, used pixel art to display the backgrounds and characters.

Old game systems weren't very powerful, and were limited in how many colors could be displayed on the screen, the size of individual sprites, and other things varying from console to console. Developers had to make small, low-resolution graphics for these systems. To make such small images look good, the artists had to create everything pixel by pixel, making sure nothing was awkward or out of place. Messiness wasn't something they could afford.

Modern pixel art

Alright, so now we're in the 21st century. Game consoles don't have any of those old limitations any more, so why should anyone care about pixel art? Well, for starters, it's still being used. Konami's Castlevania series on the Nintendo DS and Gameboy Advance use a lot of pixel art, with some 3D flourishes thrown in. In fact, a lot of handheld consoles still use the medium, and every once in awhile, pixel art will pop up in a game on one of the new consoles.

Pixel art has also seen a big comeback in independently developed games. It's a lot easier to make good looking sprites than it is to make good looking 3 dimensional art. Now it can be seen in several flash based games, as well as hand-coded ones like Cave Story.

Then there are people like me, who just enjoy the medium. Pixel art is fun to make. It requires a different skill set than painting, and stresses your ability to conserve colors and control your art closely.