The process is the same as any low-color illustration technique. There is a primary color, a highlight color and a darker shadowing color. With 3 colors depth can be simulated. So, first a pallet is created to allow adequate shading of the unique color elements. Then the primary color of the elements is pixeled. Next the darker of the shades is pixeled and subsequent lighter hues of the darker shade are applied to create the depth, when they are available. The last step is to blend the borders of the colors to smooth them. This is accomplished by using lighter and darker tones of the bordering colors but not in all cases. Often other colors of the proper intensity can be used if the pallet is limited. The trick is to create the illustion of smoothness. The eye will inherently blends colors on a pixel level so one does not always have to use the colors of the elements for shading. The key to creating 3D is shading. It requires an understanding of light, which is something I don't have the space to go into here. Look, I am more than willing to share everything I know about art, which is why I publish as many books as I do. The techniques I used to create these pieces is explained in detail in a book coming out next month.I am hoping you will embrace this type of pixel art, particularly for the sake of the thousands of artist that will be creating this type of work after they have read the book.

Thanks :)

Well, come now, that could be said about ALL work done with pixels. Pushing a pixel at a time is by no means an efficient process for ANY art. It isn't about the efficiency. This is not a quality assurance process. It's an expression of art using a specific and appreciated medium. The attitude that only simple things should be accomplished with pixels is not what I would expect from a site that supports the medium.

And, I might add, making an assumption that I did the art a specific, and improper way is not a question. Asking me how I did it would be a question. 

Thanks. It's my favorite as well. It helps that it's a cartoon of my son :)

Well, next month I have my book coming out on doing this 3D looking pixel art :)

Well, my response is pretty much the same as that made to ThereIsNoCure :) There are limitless things that can be achieved with pixel art and if pieces that push boundaries are doubted the medium as a whole suffers. I realize there are those that attempt to pass on color conversions as original pixel art, which is unfortuante but this is clearly not the case with my work. If someone doesn't understand how a piece of pixel art is created it is no justifucation for questioning the process. I have spent the better part of a decade educating the digital community on art techniques, many of which I pioneered. My effort is to educate and empower artists so they can stretch the limits of what they now do. I would hope this site would embrace that principle :)

Okay, for everyone's edification. The work I do in pixel art is painted a pixel at a time. These are not color conversions of 3D rendered images. I have been doing pixel art for 18 years, starting from the very beginning of the medium. Having a grasp of dimension should not be a shortcoming here on this site. It should be embraced without skepticism. One should not limit the expectations of a medium simply because they have limitations or they haven't seen anything like it yet. An art community and medium matures by people pushing boundaries.

And, for those desiring to achive this type of dimension in their pixel art my book on how this is achieved will be out next month.