I agree that some PJ rules seem rigid. It might feel unjust when an art piece you don't see as pixel art gets accepted into the gallery. However, I think that there should be some leeway when it comes to an artistically valuable piece, such as this, vs. an oekaki scribble of one's favorite anime character.
On the other hand, we only get to see the end results and it can be hard to prove what tools and shortcuts were used, if any. If one were to simply crop a certain part of this image, would it suddenly 'become' pixel art?
I don't get how PJ can be so stingy about some rules but then allow artwork with resolution way beyond standards. It's way better than the best I could do and I certainly like it, but it isn't pixel art.
@r5r6ty
This is amazing work! Good job!
@sbsn
The resolution of a piece isn't what determines if something is pixel art or not.. Even a 16x16 piece could be done in an oekaki style. For example with this piece, while large and while admitedley the background is a bit oekaki, it does follow the principles of pixel art, especially for the character
1) Look at the lines. They are intentional and specific, being 1 or 2 pixels in width where intendend. Not all of them follow a perfect structure, but for a piece this large it's not noticable enough to matter.
2) The anti-aliasing is obviously hand done on the pixel level, which gets into the soul of pixel art which is a focus on details at the pixel level. This "soul" can be seen elsewhere in the image.
3) The palette is limited, which is a key point of pixel art. Most pieces this size would be thousands of colors if hand drawn.
All in all, pixel art isn't so much about the process as it is about the end result. The rules are made to achieve a goal, but that isn't the only way to achieve the goal of "Does it look like the Pixels were focused on?" That's really all that matters because the process is rarely seen.
For games especially, but all pixel art and art in general, every shortcut that can be taken without compromising the final outcome should be taken. Otherwise, any piece of art would take many times the time to finish. Some people pride themselves on never taking shortcuts, and there's nothing wrong with that, but they could never put out as many pieces as fast.
I didn't mean to full on rant, but this is my view on pixel art, and I believe many share it. As with all things, the rules are flexible. For a great example of this, look up Pixels Huh - Pixel art by Octavi Navarro on youtube. He breaks several of the rules like using opacity, high color count, and other shortcuts, but not many people would argue that it isn't pixel art.