Pixel art
A much more popular variation is the term spriting, which sometimes refers to the activity of making pixel art elements for video games specifically.
The concept most likely originated from the word sprite, which is used in computer graphics to describe a two-dimensional bitmap that can be used as a building block in the construction of larger scenes.
"[This quote needs a citation] A common characteristic in pixel art is the low overall color count in the image.
Pixel art as a medium mimics a lot of traits found in older video game graphics, rendered by machines capable of only outputting a limited number of colors at once.
Additionally, many pixel artists are of the opinion that in most cases, using a large number of colors, especially when very similar to each other in value, is unnecessary, and detracts from the overall cleanliness of the image, making it look messier.
The exact point at which this occurs and the conditions for a piece to be reasonably called "pixel art" have been the source of great disagreement among professionals and enthusiasts.
However, in Oekaki, the placement of individual pixels is not considered as important compared to the general feel of the artwork, giving it a characteristic "messy" or jagged look.
[2] These art forms construct pictures out of small colored units similar to the pixels of modern digital computing.
The term pixel art was first published in a journal letter by Adele Goldberg and Robert Flegal of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1982.
[8] Due to the limited hardware of the 1970s, abstraction, as in the case of Pong's relatively simple design, sometimes led to better game readability and commercial success than attempting more detailed representational art.
[14] Still, pixel art games like Flashback, The Secret of Monkey Island, The Chaos Engine, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past had a major influence on future artists in the game industry, the contemporary demoscene and the aesthetic of pixel art in later decades.
Some demoscene pixel artists active in the 1990s have cited movies and urban graffiti as important influences for their art, particularly in designing logos.
[17] Competition gradually became an increasingly important part of demoscene gatherings, including pixel art (graphics) competitions, and as teenagers and young adults were the major demographic in these gatherings, a lot of demoscene pixel art referenced familiar fantasy, science fiction and cyberpunk tropes.
Prominent artists would look for ways to innovate, display superior technique, overcome technical restrictions, and in many cases aim for photorealism through anti-aliasing.
It has features such as weekly challenges, a forum, a hall of fame, and a monthly top 10-pixel art competition based on member voting.
[22] While activity did decline, the demoscene continued to explore pixel art on platforms from the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly using the Commodore 64 and Atari computers.
[23] Pixel doll communities grew rapidly during the 2000s, in large part due to the continued growth of forums, message boards, and chat services.
In video games for computers and consoles during the 2000s, pixel art was largely abandoned in favor of more modern graphics, particularly based on 3D.
[24][25][14] One major contribution to this trend was the success of several 'retro' pixel art games such as Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (2011), Terraria (2011), Fez (2012), Papers, Please (2013), Shovel Knight (2014), Undertale (2015), Owlboy (2016), Stardew Valley (2016), Deltarune (2018), Celeste (2018), and Octopath Traveler (2018).
[29] In contrast, the heavily stylized and abstract Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP made extensive use of filters and non-pixel art graphics.
Ivan Dixon and Paul Robertson received international attention for making a pixel art version of The Simpsons' introduction sequence.
[42] In 2012, the Smithsonian Institution museum of Washington created an exhibition called The Art of Video Games, attended by almost 700,000 people.
[28] One major contributing factor seems to have been the COVID-19 pandemic, as people around the world spent more time online, playing games, using social media and developing new hobbies.
A second contributing factor seems to have been the rise of NFTs, as pixel art became an inexpensive way to produce large numbers of artworks.
Many notable professional artists also expressed skepticism and disapproval of NFTs, citing environmental factors, pyramid scheme claims, and money laundering as reasons for rejecting offers.
One of the most profiled examples of pixel artists expressing opposition to NFTs is Castpixel, citing environmental effects and artificial scarcity.
Pixel art continued to be a popular style in games across platforms, with releases such as Antonball Deluxe (2021), Eastward (2021), Loop Hero (2021), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (2022), Songs of Conquest (2022) Pizza Tower (2023) and Antonblast (2024) Some argued that the recent wave of pixel art games, released thirty years after the release of the SNES, was largely influenced by nostalgia and freedom from publishers, responding to unoriginal stories in modern video game blockbusters and wanting to integrate contemporary themes, such as ecological concerns and representation of queer characters.
Different restrictions are central to pixel art, and these are often traced back to technical limitations of hardware such as Amiga, Commodore 64, NES, and early computers.
Some artists start the process of pixelling by drawing line art, while others begin by blocking in simple shapes and big clusters.
One widely used technique is dithering, commonly using noise or a repeating pattern such as a checkerboard or lines to create a third color when seen from a distance.
