Holy cow! Actual Nintendo developers on this site? You're the first I've ever seen! Absolutely amazing work here.

Woah, woah, woah... I don't know if you're still here, but YOU'RE the pixel artist? I loved this game. And, I love you...

I remember that game, amazing to find real game designers here, cool!

funny... I never heard of this game, probably cause it wasn't on DOS. The fog on the top middle picture bothers me...

all in all good work, nintendo is usually very picky!

Oh, here I have the chance to say hello to the dude who pixeled Zero. Hello! I dont know how many hours I put into this game back in the days. Cool!

Reference is key, MinningKrull. I look at photos, 3D renders and paintings to help me understand how a result can be created with pixels. If you can get a hold of the aforementioned reference in 1:1 pixel format you can look closely at the way a seemingly random smattering of pixels can produce just the right look for a specific material, highlight, etc.

One other thing I'd recommend is using a paint program that allows you to view the magnified image and the 1:1 image at the same time so you can be working on the magnified area while instantly viewing the results in 1:1. Pro Motion, for example, is great for this. That's what I use.

Thanks for the kind words everyone! :) Zero was a really fun game to work on.

Hey neota, we created the SNES and Genesis versions of Zero at the same time. However, we typically created the SNES artwork first and then converted it to the Genesis because the SNES has more palettes and more colors to play with. This allowed us to create what we wanted with the graphical power of the SNES and then forced us to try and recreate the same quality of artwork on the Genesis, which is a graphically inferior console.

Hey ManningKrull, there are many techniques that can be used to help you create the pixel artwork you want. For the Zero title screen we created a bunch of pencil sketches to figure out what we wanted to do with the character and logo, etc. Once we were happy with the composition we scanned the image in, just for a guide. A scanned in pencil sketch really only helps with the lines, the anti-aliasing of the image can actually get in the way if you're not careful. The best thing to do is to take some time and strip the image down to a 2 color image, just black lines on a white background. Photoshop won't do this for you. Personally I like to take my time at this stage and ensure the lines are clean. From there you can fill in block color and start shading. There's no quick technique to shading, you just need to think of the image in 3D and pay attention to the light source. The shading on the logo, sky and water just took a hell of a long time! :) I worked on this image on and off pretty much for the entire project (9 months). It was a side piece that I knew would take ages so when ever I had a spare moment I'd tinker with it.

I'm sure I'm opening up a can of worms here, but here goes... There are a lot of purists here at Pixel Joint. :) And I'm sure some don't like the idea of using any techniques outside of pushing each pixel, and I respect that. However, I am not a purist. I believe in the sum of its parts; the result. If there is a technique you devise that makes your work easier/quicker to produce or better quality I say go for it!

At the end of the day it is all about the end product in my opinion. ;)

This is amazing, as expected.

WoW! This is great!

Nice colors