Speed's Pixel Cluster v2.0

[SassySnivy]

Thanks, Gigi! I figured that having a challenge like this would be a little too difficult. x] There are a lot of things I have to keep in mind while making these. But I'm glad that WAR refueled your interest in pixel art!

Just general rules of thumb I follow since I feel like sharing. xD

• Keep it under 8 colors. Sometimes you need to just get really creative with this. Remember how during WAR I said not to over-dither? Obviously, you don't want to dither to the point that you can't tell what's what, but you still want to do considerably more dithering that you usually would with pixels.
  

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• Make the image to-scale so that the Pokemon will look larger on the pixel-over. A lot of the times, even if the Pokemon IS the main focus, it will still look too small when downsized. Gradually cut off either side of the original artwork, then (if you're in paint), resize the image. Go to the pixels tab, make sure that you have "maintain aspect ratio" checked. Type in 64 in the top box (horizontal.) If the bottom box doesn't automatically fill in as "48," then keep touching it up until it does so. Sometimes if there really isn't much of a background and the Pokemon really IS the main, center-focus of the artwork, I'll keep cutting off the sides and then cut off some of the top/bottom sides of the original art until the aspect ratio is correct when I go to resize it. This way the Pokemon is large enough to be translated well into pixel art. This is a little different if the Pokemon isn't the main focus of the art, though, and you sometimes just have to use discretion here.
  

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• I usually make a separate layer for the 64 x 48 px image, lower the opacity (just enough that I can both see what I'm doing AND what the original art has done), then make a layer over it and trace. I like to get the line art, maybe even the base colors of the Pokemon down first. Then I worry about blocking in the background. I usually start with the darker shapes and move to lighter ones. Once that's all done, I go back and refine it. Finally, I give the Pokemon shading and make sure all the colors are in check. if not, sometimes I have to do some pretty interesting things to BOTH keep the color count down AND make sure that the final result looks nice. It needs to be relatively minimalistic but not too minimalistic.
  

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• Imitate the original artist's style to the best of your ability. An example here is Sugimori's old watercolor-esque style of art. It uses harsh highlights and doesn't usually have much shading. However, sometimes you do want to add a little shading in large spaces so that that space that just consists of one solid color doesn't look too...eh, empty.
  

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• Don't forget the white border around the Pokemon. This varies depending on the style and background. For example, this Houndour by Starturds does better without the borders around Houndour since it would take away from the effect of the background. This Onix also doesn't utilize the white borders, again because of how the background interferes with the Pokemon. It just would look really odd. This Golem, however, benefits from the white border because of how
  Only don't use it if you feel like it would take too much away from the result and/or if it just...doesn't look right. Most of the lineless art styles translate fine without the borders.
  

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• Never use pure black or pure white. Since you have that white border around your Pokemon most of the time, feel free to use the black color in the background where necessary...or even the white!
  

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• Be conservative with your colors, but don't be TOO conservative. If you can afford to add a color, and not adding it would take away from the finished product, then just add the color and see if there's anywhere else you can add it to give it some more life. I went and used the tan and the pale orange that was used on this Spearow on the background, as well. Just helps make the palette more unified.
  Unification is a little more important than color conservation. If the palette isn't at all unified, keep messing with it. Here's another cool example of reusing colors: Starturds' Murkrow. If you look, you might notice that he's used some of the tan and yellow colors in Murkrow's feathers. Adds a little bit of color to it.
  

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• Make sure that, in general, the Pokemon is relatively easy to distinguish from the background.

Oh, they take about 30 minutes or so, give or take (usually give) several minutes. I've also started a Google Sheets file to keep track of progress and I might even start a project at some point. I guess I'll have to see! Nonetheless it's good to have everything organized. I didn't include some of my sprites because I personally feel like they could be redone (namely Neo Discovery Houndoom). I also didn't include ALL of Starturds original ones he made for the same reasons: some need reworking on just redoing altogether.

Since I'm doing these in order, next-up is Misty's Poliwhirl.

Also, I have some progress videos of these up on Youtube if you wanna check 'em out! Miltank and Floatzel