slynyrd

Sacred Groves - 6

The bark of willow trees like this white willow have long been used to make a mild pain reliever. I feel relieved just watching the leaves sway in the breeze. Can you spot the birds? 

Prints & Merch 

Pixel Weeklies series selection round 3

Cast your vote for the next Pixel Weeklies series! I really want to do both of these at some point, but which are you more eager to see?

Mondo - 4 (WIP2)

The first time I visited Japan I was most impressed by the density of everything. In the space that one average American home occupies you basically have a whole city block full of stores and apartments. But even more impressive than density of structures is the density of people. An obscene flow of human bodies constantly pulses through the city like blood cells in a larger organism. It's exhausting and at the same time invigorating to move within the flow.

Well, it's coming together ni...

Murdock's Sea Fort

Static version of Pixelmotion 7. Looks nice but this one really begs for the motion. 

Prints & Merch 

Pixelmotion - 7

Murdock's Sea Fort

I had the vision in my head for this over a month ago. When an idea eventually becomes reality it often evolves into something different through the process. However, in this case the final product clearly represents my initial vision with little deviation. As much as I love spontaneity, it's very satisfying to be able to accurately pull an image out of my head.

This is the first time I've attempted to animate a sparkly water surface like this. The technique is s...

Steam Lords

This 16 color palette is perfect for steam punk designs. The colors are derived from a larger master palette, which I will also release soon. 

Give it a try! As always, if you make something nice with #steamlords and mention me I might retweet, share, whatever:) 

Sacred Groves - 5

I found a lovely patch of Chamomile! These cheerful looking flowers can make a soothing cup of tea, although the medicinal qualities are still under debate. 

Juncajar

Forgot to share this on here. It's the Juncajar palette! I managed to create the entire 18 part illustration series with these 8 colors. While most of the scenes in the series are dark and moody you can just as well create an ethereal atmosphere with the lighter colors.

If you make something nice with the palette (#juncajar) and mention me I might retweet your work! 

Mondo - 4 (WIP1)

The buildings get bigger and more tightly grouped as I take you into the heart of the urban jungle known as Tokyo. So far, I'm just making various skyscrapers and will worry about the composition after I have more assets to work with. I plan on making a few distinct skyscrapers and surrounding them with more generic apartments and such. I hope I can get a train in there somewhere too. Since the buildings are so tall I might have to come up with some kind of elevated walkways and recreational roo...

Marooned

Here is the art featured in Pixelcast 28. Again, this color combo is derived from the Mondo palette. I'm still loving this palette and using it in most of my personal work. Vivid, yet soft, all colors are welcome to my weary eyes.

Prints & Merch 

Pixelcast - 28

Oh the perils of solo space flight.
Episode 28 of my time-lapse series featuring original music by yours truly. Please enjoy and don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel if you haven't already. This video can only be viewed by Pixel Insiders($5 pledge) through this unlisted link until I make the video public after one week. That's how early access works incase you were wondering. Also, Pixel Insiders can find their names in the credits sequence in the end. Thanks!

2018-07-04 16:18:19 +0000 UTC View Post

Sacred Groves - 4

The thick leafy vegetation provided by the Kudzu plant has some positive applications, but this aggressive vining plant can quickly get out of control. Growing more than a foot a day in the warm season Kudzu can swallow up large swathes of land, seemingly overnight. 

Prints & Merch 

July 2018 Schedule

More than the weather will be heating up in July, check out all these hot pixels coming your way! But I must warn you in advance, this may be the last month with such a loaded schedule for a while. 

The beginning of August will mark the one year anniversary since I launched my Patreon site. As I evaluate my progress over the year I see it's becoming unreasonable to sustain such a high level of output without proper cash flow. Unless I miraculously receive a bunch of support over the next ...

Mondo - 3

A Day at the Park

Well, our peaceful retreat has become quite crowded, but you should expect no less during the cherry blossom season. When the Sakura trees are in bloom, crowds flock to the park to picnic in the beautiful atmosphere among the trees. They call this 'hanami,' which means cherry blossom viewing. Since it's legal to drink alcohol in public in Japan, booze plays a major part in the picnic experience. Drunk masses crammed in a public space sounds like a recipe for disaster, bu...

Tutorial - 11 - Lighting Tips

Important tips to help handle light and shadow with confidence.

Tutorial - 10 - Mood

How do you want the viewer to feel when they see your art? Happy? Relaxed? Melancholy? Changing the mood often involves changes to cluster work, but simple color selection can make all the difference.

Tutorial - 9 - Light Source

A basic reference for directional light from one primary source.

Pixelblog - 6 - Light and Shadow

Ever important concepts illuminated with many clear visual references in this tutorial feature. Hope it helps! 

Sacred Groves - 3

Looks like we've got an infestation of nettle plants. Not to worry, while some species have stinging spines, these are the common type that make a great meal for butterflies. Heck, even people can eat them. 

Prints & Merch 

Mondo - 3 (WIP2)

Now we're getting somewhere! I'm moving a bit away from the crowded park idea to more zen garden and nature. There will still be plenty of people added in the end though. Crowds are unavoidable in this place.

Like all Mondo scenes this is a combination of imagination and real world reference. The buildings are based off real structures, but the environment and composition are imagined. While it may be fictional, it's not hard to imagine such a place existing in Japan.

In the end I ...

Orga and Mekai - 1 (version 2)

Here's the static version of the updated first scene from Orga and Mekai. Besides the color treatment, the clusters and composition of the original remain pretty much unchanged. Such a blissful mood here.  

Prints & Merch 

Pixelmotion - 6

Orga and Mekai - 1

This month I decided to revisit an older artwork that has been begging for some animation. The static original was actually the very first piece of content I made to kick off my Patreon campaign nearly one year ago. It's still one of my favorites and I am excited to bring it to life with motion. Check out the Orga and Mekai series if you missed it.

First, I comple...

Sacred Groves - 2

The incredible Neem Tree commonly grows in tropical and sub tropical regions. The tree has been used for its many medical products for more than 5000 years.

The foliage in the the foreground shows a closer look at the long slender leaves of the tree. 

Floating City of 4000

I have an ongoing concept where I represent my social network as a floating city. The first version was actually an airship, which I made to celebrate 2k followers on twitter. Since then I updated it at 3k a couple months ago, and just recently made this 3rd iteration to celebrate 4k. Each time I reimagine it the city grows larger and eventually it could become its own planet!

As I said, this represents my entire online network and is meant to celebrate my fans and followers all across th...

Mondo - 3 (WIP1)

Now we enter the romantic and enchanting side of Japan. While there is still not a lot of information in the image yet, you can see we have moved away from the dense urban area to a green space with traditional structures.

In order to give the citizens a bit of respite from the concrete jungle, many nice parks can be found in Japanese cities, and they are not taken for granted. I guess when you work all the time and live in such a crowded city a relaxing moment surrounded by nature is in...

Simple Nature 1.0

Time for a free palette share! I formed this combination of colors for the Sacred Groves series and they work great for cheerful nature scenes. All colors are pulled from Mondo. I know it can be challenging for beginners to get comfortable with such a large palette, so I decided to start extracting some of my favorite color combos. Look forward to more mini palette shares in the future! 

Modern Alloy

Amazon goddess and mechanical giant explore exotic worlds together in an exciting new puzzle platformer.

Just kidding, but it would be a great idea to explore someday! I've always been a fan of games that let you pilot different vehicles, and I especially like the contrast between controlling a tiny character and a large mech. So many cool levels you could come up with to play off your contrasting skill sets. Maybe someday...

2018-06-06 15:09:44 +0000 UTC View Post

Pixelcast - 27

All new art and music come together for another engaging process video. Recently, I've been making fairly polished pixel art drafts before I even start recording. This makes the process go a lot smoother and cuts down on editing time. However, this can make the process feel a bit stiff when I'm just reproducing the art from a draft that is already pixel art. Therefore, I went back to a more genuine approach for this video. I still plan the artwork with a rough hand sketch and prepare a color pal...

Sacred Groves - 1

Starting a new series is always exciting, but also challenging. Since I want my series to be consistent as a whole the first piece must establish the concept and style. Colors, perspective, scale, presentation, and many more design decisions must be made.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to focus more on scenes or specific plant sprites. 64x64 pixels isn't a lot for scenes but I thought simple sprites would be a bit boring to enjoy as individual artworks. Therefore, I sorta combined the idea by ...

June 2018 Schedule

Greetings everyone. Another month in the books and time to get hyped for the next round of content. No big surprises in the month of June. Most notable is the start of a new pixelminis series. Sacred Groves won the poll for the next theme so get ready for lots of nice plant studies. Thanks to everyone who participated in the poll.

I will be making the 3rd Mondo piece throughout June. I plan to make at least 4 of them. I would like to do more but not sure I want to spend more than 4 months...