How To Draw Pixel Art Lines

Outlines are an important part of pixel art, especially in cartoony styles like mine. Here I'll share all my tips and tricks to making them work for you.

Why utilize outlines

Aye, outlines are not required for pixel art, merely you may accept noticed they are pretty common, specially in sprites. There are a few skilful reasons to use them.

Outlines help carve up objects from the groundwork, as well equally other objects. This is used in many games to proceed the characters from blending in to the background so the histrion can more easily keep an eye on them. It's especially of import in pixel art considering of the pocket-sized palettes. If an object shared a color with something behind it, they would alloy together, making it harder to figure out what you lot're looking at.

Single Pixel Wide Outlines

The most basic line in pixel art is a single pixel broad. This is easy to describe when the line is going straight up and downwards, or left and correct, but diagonals and curves have a little more than skill.

The play a joke on to make the segments of the line only connect diagonally. This may seem like it makes the line more broken upwardly, simply in a finished piece of pixel art our optics perceive it every bit a solid connected line.

Below you can see an example of a line that has been quickly sketched, and ane that has been cleaned upwards manually.

The one on the left has a different thickness at unlike points, it has edges that appear sharp or pointed where they shouldn't. It looks sketchy and fatty. The one on the correct (which has been cleaned up) has a consequent thickness, and shine curves. All of the extra pixels accept been removed, and but the ones necessary for drawing a continued line are left.

This is the thinnest a single-color completely-connected line can be. You tin can of course make your outlines thicker, or even use techniques to make them expect thinner (more than about this in role 2), but this is the about ordinarily used outline for pixel art.

Information technology's common to depict a line in a messy fashion, where it may expect similar the line on the left, and then clean it up subsequently past zooming in and removing pixels along the border until the line segments only connect at the corners. This way you can sketch out bigger shapes commencement, then practice the hard work of making them consistent and clean later you are certain they are in the right place.

Diagonal Lines

When pixelling straight diagonal lines, at that place's one unproblematic dominion to follow: it should be made up of identical line segments.

In other words, the line should really be made upwards of a agglomeration of smaller lines that are the same length.

You tin can run across beneath the lines on the correct announced straighter. Our eyes easily notice when one segment is dissimilar from the others in a line, it sticks out and looks bumpy.

This tin be a hard dominion to piece of work within, and yous may have to modify your piece to make it work, but not doing this creates jaggy looking lines that don't accurately depict what you're trying to show. Intermission this dominion only when yous have to.

Curved Lines

Drawing curves follows a similar theory to drawing diagonal lines. This will allow you lot depict circles that look perfectly circular, and not bumpy.

The easiest place to outset is cirlcles. Like in straight lines, you'll have to pay attention to the length of each line segment. Instead of making them all identical though, yous will put the biggest ones on the top, bottom, left and right of the circle, and they will gradually get smaller towards the eye.

You tin can see in this example, the line segments on the top of this circle are the longest (7 pixels), and then 2 pixels, then ane pixel in the middle.

Here's a counter example, the lengths get v, two, 1, 2, 1 (left), merely instead should get 5, ii, two, 1, 1 (right). You tin encounter non doing this gives the line a little lump in the middle.

Unfortunately, most graphics programs will describe circles the wrong mode, considering technically it's more correct mathematically. But who cares well-nigh math, right? We're artists, our job is to make it look good.

Once you get used to pixelling circles, you should be able to apply this to any curved lines in your piece.

Corners

Outlines have the power to change the shape of your object, particularly on corners. On corners, you can suspension the rule about only connecting diagonally in club to create a point. Cheque out how merely changing the corner on this shape controls how information technology looks. This is something you have to continue in mind while outlining.

Where To Outline

Not every part of your object needs to have an outline. One common technique is to just put an outline on the outside of your object. This lets your object maintain contrast with the groundwork, simply can save space and increase clarity of the details within.

Hither is an example with internal outlines (left) and without internal outlines (right):

You can encounter that an outline is not always needed, for example you tin nonetheless clearly see the pilus and head are separate objects, even though there's no line. But in some places where there isn't plenty contrast (or mayhap none), you'll still have to add together a line, such as betwixt the head and neck.

Some other common place to forego outlines is where your object touches another. The well-nigh common identify this is used is the lesser of an object that's resting on the ground.

Hither on this character in that location is no outline where her hand is touching the stick she is holding, or on the bottom of her feet. Not doing this can sometimes make the object feel like it is floating and non really touching the ground / other object.

You can also extend the external outlines into the sprite to give information technology a little more separation:

This suggests to the viewer that there is definitely separation between these two objects (such as the hair and caput), simply without filling all that space with black lines. You but demand to draw enough of the line to suggest the separation. Similar in all aspects of pixel art, you don't demand to draw everything, just plenty so the viewer gets the idea.

Y'all can use all of this in varying degrees, it ultimately depends on the sprite, the groundwork, the palette, and your personal gustation.

When To Outline

Once you know how to draw your outlines, you demand to recall almost when to depict them. Some artists completely draw the outline showtime (called line art), and so fill it with colour. I find that it's it's easier to create shapes and add the outlines on afterwards, especially on small sprites. Information technology helps you think of the actual shape of what yous're drawing more. But this too depends on your technique, I adopt to pixel similar I'm painting, existence very loose and messy and then cleaning information technology upwardly afterwards. I typically incorporate adding the outlines in the cleanup process, adding detail and fine-tuning the shapes. That ways that I never draw messy outlines. Hither's an case:

Notice how I tweaked the shape a footling to better fit the outline.

I hope yous know understand how to draw clean, smoothen outlines in pixel art. Follow my Twitter or Tumblr to hear when new tutorials get released.

Part 2:  Pixel Art Outlines Part 2: Using Colour

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Source: http://samkeddy.com/pixel-art-outlines/

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