Any tips on becoming better at digital art (and maybe pixel art)

[Zunne]

Just asking! I started making digital drawings recently and was wondering how people become better at art, so i just wanted some tips to (hopefully) become a better artist.

[nuclearblues]

I'm not a digital artist, nor a professional or trained artist by any means, but I truly believe the most important thing about art is freedom. do your utmost to avoid feeling pressured to be "good" at art, avoid comparing yourself to others, prioritize having fun and experimentation. the nice thing about digital art is that it frees you from the fear of experimentation due to the cost of materials, something I myself struggle with pretty often. however, it also presents a separate issue in the form of the undo button; don't undo everything until you get something perfect! embrace mistakes, it's one of the most humanistic components of art. stay curious, stay playful. try weird colors, weird shapes, weird texture combinations. draw a variety of subjects in a variety of ways. be messy, this can be incredibly difficult to embrace but when you do is unbelievably fun. don't be afraid to occasionally trace or copy; there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing these so long as you don't claim the work as your original creation. it can be an absolutely wonderful way to try a new style, or to learn the forms of an odd subject and gain a better understanding of shapes. above all, experimentation and spontaneity are the best way to learn (apart from the sage old advice of "practice" that I know everyone interested in art has hated to hear at some point, but it does hold true).

[GarbCat]

Hii  I've been drawing primarily pixel art for yearssss now, and even though I've been in art block for 4 of those years and my art quality is debatable, I have learned a few pointers, both from experience and from other people, that I consider very valuable and dear to my heart. Here's a few that I can remember

• Try to avoid "subpixeling"- (when some pixels on a single given sprite are differing sizes). Smarter people than me can explain it better than just "it looks really bad" but... it kind of does look really bad lol. You see it a lot in fledgling pixel-ers trying to squeeze a little more detail into their sprite's hair or facial expressions, but it's a problematic solution. For one resizing your pixel art becomes a little more awkward with differently sized "pixels" and some sacrifice of minute detail is kind of a given when doing pixel art in general so subpixeling is kind of a bandaid solution.
• Try to keep the palettes small- strictly speaking this probably isn't necessary. You're presumably making pixel art to be viewed on high fidelity modern-ish computer monitors, opposed to stuffing it into a Super Nintendo game, but idk it's good practice I guess. You can get away with surprisingly few colors regarding pixel art. In general the fewer colors your palette has the easier it is to manage and alter your palette on the fly, but whether you're deliberately emulating the style of video game sprites or not, you can get away with using a single color for multiple elements of a sprite (for example, using the same red color from a sprite's hair color to shade the clothes or skin...)
• Colorpicking advice- I struggle a bit with colorpicking, and you might too, I know a lot of artists do. Don't be afraid to just steal colors LOL. What I mean is if you're drawing something and need colors you can just colorpick from similar sprites/images or those with a style you're trying to lean on and use those in your sprites. You know, use the color picker tool on Win95 screenshots for your old-web inspired art, pull from the colors of in-game sprites if you're drawing fanart (did this a lot with my Earthbound/Mother 3 fanart LOL), or just pull an entire palette from a video game/console you like and pull from that palette if seeing the color-selecting screen and its 1billion different colors give you decision paralysis. For example, a lot of my pixel art from 2020-21 was characterized by coloring with the NES's supported color palette. I'd pull from that, then darken or lighten colors accordingly for shading or just if I wanted a slightly darker color than what I had. For me at least, it was way easier to color my work when I had about 40 or 50 colors to pick from at the start, then work from there.
• Avoid pillow shading- This is when the colors of a sprite grow increasingly lighter as you approach the center of the image, much like a pillow would look under the average bedroom light. It's hard to explain, but a friend of mine showed me this graphic years ago and it's been a lifesaver- particularly the unsaid advice to draw your intended light source as a lighbulb, to help you visualize where your sprite would be lighter or darker
  

I hope that wasn't too long winded and that you can gleam some advice from it. Really I'm just an ameteur artist that's been doing it for a pretty long time and I picked up a few pointers along the way. The advice I wrote out was under the assumption that you're going to be drawing pixel art but I think if you're just making web graphics for yourself a lot of this advice still applies, especially since a lot of these graphics have pretty small canvas sizes. Good luck with pixel art, it's a very fun medium and one I cherish deeply <3[/list][/list]

[foxmosis]

This one's more of a small technical detail but when you're making digital art make sure you set that dpi to something like 300dpi (or more, I usually go for 600dpi) instead of the usual default of 72dpi.  Makes your art look like compressed and crunched because it's got more room to breathe.  That goes for scanning traditional artwork too if you can help it!

I don't really think dpi matters when it comes to pixel art, I can't image how it would, but if I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me lol

[candycanearter07]

Start with a really small canvas size. I think 32x32-64x64 is a pretty good middle ground of not feeling cramped or overwhelmed. Also, it's ok to have minimal shading. Only having one color shift for shading and getting the idea across is better than trying to dither 4 different shade colors and having it look like a mess. Obviously, as you get better you can pull off the more intense shading but stick to one or two levels of shading at first, i think.

I'm not a digital artist, nor a professional or trained artist by any means, but I truly believe the most important thing about art is freedom. do your utmost to avoid feeling pressured to be "good" at art, avoid comparing yourself to others, prioritize having fun and experimentation.

^ this its really hard but do it or you will feel destroyed and maybe ruin all of your friendships if youre annoying about it

[Corrupted Unicorn]

I have no pixel art guides for you, but Ctrl+Paint is a great library of short videos on digital and traditional art aimed for very beginners 

It's also very important to get used to your tool of the trade, if you're using a drawing tablet. My main recommendation for that would be to temporarily get rid of your mouse/trackpad and try to navigate your computer and the Net using your drawing tablet, to really train that hand/eye coordination. I even got to play a few Neopets games with it! 

[nihil0]

Hi!!! Digital and pixel artist here :D

Digital:

REFERENCE REFERENCE REFERENCE!!!
I am so serious about references as someone who was a chronic self-learner, PureRef is my favorite tool for this.

Fundamentals are called Fundamentals for a reason, they are your building blocks and you need to learn the rules to break them!

Learn to fail! Not everything will be up to your standards, but that is completely fine. Art is a skill honed by practice, the more you fail the more you learn.


Pixel Art:

I'm not an expert of it, but from what I've learned over my time of making assets and character sprites;

Colors and Color theory are very important! Pixel art inherently has less space to stretch, you must use your canvas wisely.

I find that limited color palettes are easier to work with, it keeps you streamlined and more focused on what you're actually drawing, programs like Aseprite are built on limited palettes, this piece for example only uses the last maybe 10 colors of the given palette:




Remember, perfection is the enemy of self-expression

[Spots]

There are a lot of different ways of practicing and improving at drawing, but the method that has always been the fastest and most effective for me is to find reference photos and drawings that I like and try to copy them as accurately as possible without tracing. I learned figure drawing by copying tons of references until I developed the muscle memory to improvise figures with minimal help from references. I've always been shocked at how fast I can improve by just filling up a couple sheets of paper with copies of whatever I'm trying to improve at. For example, I struggled with expressions for a long time and felt like my progress was stagnating, but I saw immediate and massive improvement after spending a little time copying expressions in the styles I was trying to emulate. It is important to first know how to break complex objects down into simpler shapes, though. It's hard to draw things without laying down some basic shapes to use as a guide first. There are lots of books and tutorials on the Internet that explain how to block out and construct various things like human figures. I also find it really helpful to watch speedpaint videos and observe how other people do it.

Another technique I see pop up once in a while but never really used myself is iterative drawing. The basic premise of it is to try to draw something very specific like an eye or a hand, analyze your drawing and figure out what's wrong with it if it didn't turn out the way you wanted, draw it again and try to fix the issue, and repeat the process until it looks the way you want. It seems like it works for a lot of people and can result in rapid improvement, but I've always struggled with identifying what's wrong with my art in the first place, so I was never really able to use it.

I think the most important thing to do when trying to get better at art (or anything else for that matter) is to continuously pursue improvement until you're satisfied with the results. I see so many people who draw for years and never improve because they get too comfortable with their current skill level and never push themselves. That being said, though, constantly picking your own art apart and trying to improve can get exhausting and there are certain things that can only really be improved with time and practice. So, it's also important to take breaks and just draw for fun without worrying about improving sometimes.

[KibbehTheKib]

a lot of great and practical suggestions here so far! references are super helpful, please don't feel afraid to use them.

to offer something I haven't seen suggested here: look at other people's art! if you see a piece that you really like, or that stands out to you, think about what drew you to it and how you can incorporate it into your own art. finding the things you like and blending them together in a way that makes you happy is a great way to find your own style, and it's helped my own art a ton :D

also, try not to feel boxed in by thinking you have to do something a certain way. like other people have said, feel free to get experimental - that goes for your style and your methods! are you getting hung up on drawing lineart? maybe try a lineless style or keep your lineart more sketchy! if a different method makes it more fun, or easier to get in there and draw, then by all means try it even if it's not the traditional way to do it.