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Does messy pixel art bother you?

Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: The Lounge
Forum Name: Diversions
Forum Discription: Get to know your fellow pixel freaks. Chat about anything to do with video games, comic books, anime, movies, television, books, music, sports or any other off topic bs you can think of.
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27037
Printed Date: 11 September 2025 at 12:33pm


Topic: Does messy pixel art bother you?
Posted By: Kyrieru
Subject: Does messy pixel art bother you?
Date Posted: 21 November 2020 at 9:27am
I've noticed quite a few games with otherwise good pixel art that are kinda...messy. That is, they'll have lines that are left jaggy (stairs), or single pixels left over from quick shading strokes, or they'll have 4 stages of a color used for smoothing, and yet leave patches with no smoothing because they just missed it.

I've worked with pixel artists before who are otherwise very talented, and yet it's like they just don't look at individual parts of a sprite to check for errors. So it's hard to tell if artists are just being lazy, being rushed, or if they really just don't even realize they're doing it.

I'd compare it to seeing a great story that has a lot of spelling mistakes. I get it, but at the same time it just kills me to see it in finished games, because it feels so unprofessional, and then people praise it like it's perfect anyway and so there's no expectation for artists to do clean work.


Replies:
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 21 November 2020 at 10:53am
A lot of jaggies stand out to me only because I've seen and studied so much 'clean' art. I guess for the general audience it doesn't matter as much?

Also people praise stuff without being aware why they are praising it. Saying "nice art" because they love the game or because they think pixel = retro = cool.

If you've worked with artists who do messy work, I guess you're in a better position than I am to figure out what goes through their minds?

Do you have some examples in mind?

Posted By: Kyrieru
Date Posted: 21 November 2020 at 12:42pm
Originally posted by Hapiel

If you've worked with artists who do messy work, I guess you're in a better position than I am to figure out what goes through their minds?
Do you have some examples in mind?

Well, to give a very uncontroversial example.
https://i.gyazo.com/55393eb062c7add20cf4be534cf5b43b.jpg - https://i.gyazo.com/55393eb062c7add20cf4be534cf5b43b.jpg

And here's an example from something someone linked me to recently.
https://i.gyazo.com/be6dc600113e2ea2b5dfee47a8ef6a66.png - https://i.gyazo.com/be6dc600113e2ea2b5dfee47a8ef6a66.png

Even with what people try to call "high bit" these days, I just look at the sky in any given shot, and it almost always seems like there's lazy shading somewhere. At this point I find it hard to enjoy pixel art games Just for the fact that all the imperfections give the impression that "someone made this", and wasn't paying attention. A lot of snes games have some janky shading, but it seems like they were almost always clean.

Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 21 November 2020 at 1:10pm
It's twice the same image!

Posted By: Kyrieru
Date Posted: 21 November 2020 at 1:41pm
Originally posted by Hapiel

It's twice the same image!
Edited and corrected it. Other is shot from shovel knight.

Posted By: Mike9377
Date Posted: 04 January 2021 at 11:05pm
On the second image you linked, it kind of bothers me a little. It leads me to believe that that twisted tree trunk thing might have originally been an image of a 3D model that was edited to have its color count reduced without much else done to it. I would imagine that would be a huge time saver. Playing 3D games with the AA turned off tends to have weird jagged edged like that. Maybe the artist just wanted to try a new style though.

I also think a lot of pixel art in indie games tends to be an excuse to not invest a lot of time in graphics, which is disappointing.


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