One of the best pixel activities of the year, Pixelation's annual Secret Santa will be held on Pixel Joint this year, due to circumstances (of course with permission from its previous organiser, Atnas). If you'd like to participate all you need to do is hit on this thread and type "I'm in" and note what you'd like or wouldn't like from your Santa this christmas.
Make sure to sign up before December 6th.
Please only sign up if you are absolutely certain you can finish your gift. Have fun!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for October 2020.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
PixelJoint is now going to give two new monthly awards!
There'll be:
andylittle
Over the past 4 weeks you guys have absolutely blown us away by the amazing number of Pixelween entries and their al-round high quality! 55 entries, 84 people who participated to some extend and 226 images in total. That is insane, in the best possible way! Thank you!
How did you like the event? Would you join in if we did this next year? What would you like different? Let us know in the comments of this post.
Judging 55 entries is nearly impossible. Luckily we have an amazing team who pulled it off:
Pixelblink, the organiser of Pixelween 2005 - 2007
Prowler, the creator of the Masters of Pixel Art books
NeoBerserker, the moderator at PixelDalies
Ali Aydin, a TV director / writer (it was a storyboard compo, after all!)
PJ members: Cure, Cyangmou, DawnBringer, Mrmo_Tarius
And your moderators: Gecimen, Irena, Christoballs
With all that being said, and with real prizes to be given away, I'm sure you're excited who the winners are. So read on!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for September 2020.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
Pixelween has awoken from its slumber, and it promises rewards for those who endure its horrors!
This year, you will be crafting the storyboard of your own horror film over the course of four consecutive weekly challenges. Each challenge will be one more part of your film, and all the scenes together shall be your Pixelween entry. Call forth your darkest nightmares!
Rules
To be eligible for the Pixelween prizes, you must submit to at least 2 of the 4 weeklies. As long as at least two of your submissions are on time, you are allowed (but not required) to submit more up until October 25, the final deadline. Having a full storyboard is not required to win, but the fates favor a finished film.
The winning storyboards will be chosen from all eligible entries by a jury of select PixelJoint members, perhaps with the help of some dark attendants who for now remain in the shadows...
The weeklies also function as normal weeklies, with the usual prizes. Your success in the weeklies does not influence your chances in Pixelween judging.
Every week there will be specifications about theme and color use, and for every scene the canvas size will be 130x80.
Prizes:
There are 3 Aseprite, 3 Pyxel Edit, and 3 Pro Motion keys, which will be divided among the top 9 entrants. The highest placing winners get to choose first, and if a winner does not need a software license it will be moved on to the 10th place, and so on.
Something stirs in the bowels of Pixel Joint. Something long thought dead.
In the darkness, the faint glow of pixels glimmers.
On September 28th, these unknown pixels shall break free, spilling their horrors out into the world. Bind them, and you may be rewarded.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for August 2020.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for July 2020.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
PJ member SovanJedi did all the major pixel art in this pretty amazing music video!
Check out: The Living Tombstone - Love I Need
Do you have a perfect idea for a weekly challenge? Something that is well defined/restricted, but still open to creativity? We would love to use it!
We've made this forum thread where you can submit your idea, or comment with suggested improvements on others. There is no guarantee on if/when/how we might use it, to keep the upcoming challenges exciting and fair for everyone. But if "your" challenge takes place, you are of course welcome to take part too!
We have opened an official discord server!
Discord is a chatting service, and we have opened the server to talk about pixel art, get quick feedback, or just general chat about games, hobbies, or anything else you wish to share with fellow PJ members! Right now we are a group of 20 people, and we wish to keep it relatively small, cozy and friendly.
The server is for PixelJoint members only.
Click this link to join! We're looking forward to see you inside :)
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for June 2020.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for May 2020.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for April 2020.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for March 2020.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for February 2020.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for January 2020.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
Veteran pixel artist Henk Nieborg has just released his first Kickstarter project; Battle Axe: a pixel-art arcade adventure!
The Gauntlet-style hack'n slash game features beautifully drawn pixel art and will be released on all consoles, PC and Mac.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for December 2019.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
Mazgeon website is now live! You can stay tuned from now and on about any upcoming update:
mazgeon.com
Mazgeon is a Dungeon Roguelike game that has been in development for +3 years, and now is going Closed beta through Steam before full release soon.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for November 2019.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for October 2019.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for September 2019.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for August 2019.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
Pixel art metroidvania game Savior launches its Kickstarter with a new extended trailer. Savior is planned to come out on Windows and Mac, and Switch and additional consoles, pending the completion of Kickstarter stretch goals. Launch dates are TBA. Savior is built by Starsoft, a small group of passionate industry veterans with dozens of years of experience between them. The awesome art is made by pixel artists led by PJ member Weston.
A long awaited pixel art metroidvania of phenomenal pixel art awesomeness, Blasphemous is now on Steam! The game is developed by Spanish indie studio The Game Kitchen, published by good old Team17 and features amazing art by multiple pixel artists including Pixel Joint members such as Holmik and Cyangmou. Be sure to check it out!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for July 2019.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for June 2019.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for May 2019.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
Volume 3 of the book series Masters of Pixel Art has been put on Kickstarter, running until 1st of July.
Several members from Pixel Joint are featured, as was the case for the previous volumes of the series.
The book can also be preordered through Nice Pixel.
PJs next isometric collaboration has begun on the forum.
This time, we will draw an alien planet! This includes all sorts of aliens, civilized or monster, alien buildings or nests, humans landing and/or exploring, spaceships or UFOs, alien habitat, alien geography (e.g. flying isles), laboratories, and everything sci-fi. Hello aliens, we come in peace!
This project features AdigunPolack's award winning palette.
Read all the details and the project rules HERE.
Lospec.com, a website with tools and resources for people creating restrictive digital art (created by PJer skeddles) now has user accounts!
Customize your profile with your name, bio, avatar and links to your social media, now including your PixelJoint profile.
When you join you'll be added to our Users Directory where you'll be listed with our other members, including your social links. If you mark yourself as a pixel artist, you'll also be included on or Pixel Artists List. More features will be gradually be added to profiles, so reserve your handle to make sure no one else does!
Sign up is quick and easy, just head to Lospec.com and click sign up at the top.
Announcing the results of yet another extemely competitive color palette competition:
First Place - AdigunPolack - AAP-MajestyXVII
Second Place - 0xDB - 2019_04_22_0xDB_01
Third Place - Drazile - DRZ17A
Honorable Mention - Mordfikosz - 12bit
Honorable Mention - DimWiddy - DW17
Honorable Mention - SoloSalsero - SLSO-CLR17
Reddit's /r/PixelArt is hosting another pixel art contest!
The theme is portraits at 128x128 using Adigun Polack's AAP-Splendor128 Palette.
The entries will be compiled into a video like our last contest, and the winner will receive a $40 USD digital gift card for Amazon.com.
For more information on rules and how to submit, check out the thread on reddit.
Thanks everyone, hope to see some great submissions with this one!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for April 2019.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
Retro shooter with old school pixel graphics, 'Foreign Frugglers' now has a Steam page! If you are interested in this project, Fruggle that wishlist button!
Many great entries have already been submitted, but there's still room for yours!
Your chance to submit your 17 color unique + original color palette ends May 7, 2019.
The winning palette will be used in PJs next ISOcollab. Other award winners may also be used in other events and challenges.
All entrants get a rare trophy added to their profile. Very nice!
This week, you have to face a colour that stands for so many things. Love, blood, danger and "The Moscow–Washington" hotline.
Just some simple shades of red would be too easy for all you pixel pushers out there though. That's why you have to deal with not very pleasing greys, blues and greens.
There are no restrictions. However, make sure you incorporate that pesky red! My polite looking ork friend serves as an example.
Canvas Size - Max. 300x300
Colours - Exactly 4, the colors in the sample image #141725 #4e6058 #858d83 #f00a0a
Transparency - No.
Animation - Optional.
The challenge thread will have all the challenge updates. The thread is also a great place to post your WIPs.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for March 2019.
Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists, and all the members who took time to rate!
Time for another Pixeljoint palette comp which is open to everyone and is quite simple.
Submit your 17 color unique + original palette. Hex values must be included.
The winning palette will be used in PJs next forum collab and a spiffy trophy added to your profile.
+1000 Pts+500 Pts +250 Pts+100 Pts
* Honorable mentions may be given for this contest as needed.
See the forum thread to post your entry and read the rules HERE
Comp closes, May 7, 2019. CLOSED
PJs latest isometric collaborative project with post apocalypse theme featuring Night's award winning palette is complete in a record equaling time of 7 months! The final result is mind blowing, thanks to many pixel masters and many collab frequenters that have multiplied their skills in time.
98 tiles, 32 participants, assembled between September 13, 2018 and April 14, 2019.
The final image can be seen HERE.
Thanks to everyone who participated in this collab and provided so much help to others in this 13 page thread. The top contributors were myself Gecimen and s.g.m. with his spectacular tiles.
The color competition for the next collab is very soon. Stay tuned!
Nicepixel Awards is started to honour all amazing pixel art releases, and hopefully to inspire and encourage further pixelling! Both newcomers as well as oldskool elite are welcome to enter their work from the past year (2018).
There are some nice prizes and cash to be won for the top positions.
Deadline is the 10th of April.
Check the web page for rules, submission and more details!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for February 2019. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
Ada, a pixel art hack and slash / ARPG is on Kickstarter in its final 5 days waiting to be funded. They just released a demo today - be sure to check it out.
Lospec web site, have implemented a uploader for Pixel Art, which can enlarge the size to share on Twitter, too a link for have a viewer.
If you want to try it, I share the link: LOSPEC
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for January 2019. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
/r/PixelArt is hosting an art contest, and giving away two $30 Amazon gift cards as prizes! The contest will be open for 4 weeks, ending March 12th.
There are two categories that you can enter:
Each will have a winner chosen by a panel of judges. Resuls will be combined into a collage and video and posted to reddit.
Full rules and information are in the reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelArt/comments/apx1sm/official_rpixelart_contest_win_a_30_amazon_gift/
PJ member macdoom is releasing a game today all programming and pixel art made by himself, and the music made by Aquatarkuss.
You can find gameplay videos at https://www.facebook.com/WyvernJoust/
You can play the demo from here: https://macdoom.itch.io/wyvern-joust-demo
The game will also be released at Itch.io
PJ member UltimoGames has just released a new free game!
There are lots of little doors with fun pixel animations behind them, and some puzzles to collect all hidden medals/achievements.
Be sure to check it out.
Fellow PJ member Johan Vinet presents his latest solo project Lunark! After working on several awesome indie games such as Flinthook, Mercenary Kings, Shovel Knight Showdown and Rivals of Aether, he has taken the leap to create his own project, put it on Kickstarter, and is looking for its audience! If you'd like to see Lunark (a Prince of Persia / Another World / Flashback inspired Cinematic Platformer) go live, be sure to back him up.
With eye popping pixel art visuals, Lunark already looks awesomse but when Johan is involved, we are sure a lot more is to come!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for December 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
After a very long time in the making, PJ member ptoing and his crew finally put out a public demo of their latest game Fire Lancer, an oldschool style shmup with modern sensibilities, for the WonderSwan Color. The demo package contains both a rom as well as a PC version.
Head over to http://firelancer.ws/ to download the demo and read about the scoring contest with a cash reward.
Interstate Drifter 2000, a game by PJ member UltimoGames is now playable on Newgrounds! You can play the game via this link.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for October 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for September 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for August 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for July 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for June 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for May 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
In order to celebrate their 40,000 followers well known twitter site and frequent source of great art Pixel Dailies host a week-long collaborative theme where you have to pixel a portrait of yourself to be in their yearbook!
Go and check it out if you want your face immortalised.
Pixel Dailies Yearbook
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for April 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for March 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
Mega Cat Studios is an independent development team, for homebrew development in console like Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, Super NES and NES.
The development team has just launched its new project: Little Medusa available for NES.
I was involved in the beginning of the development, to create the first sprite, concept art and story board and will soon upload all the assets of the game in my gallery.
You can download a Demo of the game, but you need an NES emulator to play.
We're going to try a new kind of compo here at PJ. There will be participation awards for everyone involved so be sure to take part!
This teamwork compo works as following:
Everyone has a bit over two weeks to submit line art, or any image which uses only 2 colors (which matches the image requirements and theme). The day after the first submission deadline you will receive a message containing line art from another random participant, you will have 3 weeks to finish this other persons work into a colored pixel art.
After the competition is over, non-part taking PJ mods and selected judges will look at the end results and select a top 3. Both the submitter of the line art and the submitter of the final result will receive trophies, so you can win twice! Everyone who submits both a line art and a colored artwork will receive an award.
Image requirements:
The theme for the image is: An unlikely couple
Canvas Size - exactly 150x100 or 100x150
Colors - Max. 32 for finished work, exactly 2 colors for line art.
Transparency - No.
Animation - No.
We're kickstarting Rise of the Third Power!
I've been working on some pixel art assets for this RPG, like sprites, tiles, icons, etc.
The Lospec Pixel Art Tutorials page is now live!
We've created the biggest list of pixel art tutorials on the net!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for February 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
Reddit allows users to create their own communities, and the main subreddit for pixel art has reached this huge milestone. Who even knew that many people were into pixel art?
I skeddles aka Sam Keddy have also taken over as the head moderator of the subreddit. I hope to see some positive changes in the sub going forward, and have lots of ideas.
In celebration (in addition to reddit soon to be releasing a big update), we have several contests going on.
Pixeljoint has had a twitter account for ages, but we've never really used much...until now!
To let everyone know we're in action, for the next 24h hours we'll be retweeting all pixel art shared on twitter with the hastag #pixeljoint ! Really anything you want to be shared, old and new works.
European Speedrunning Assembly (aka ESA) is live on https://www.twitch.tv/esamarathon (live until the evening of 24th of February).
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for January 2018. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
To celebrate the 30th aniversary of the Final Fantasy game series, Square Enix has released a new compilation book of all the sprites (mostly designed by the artist: Kazuko Shibuya).
You can find the book and more information in the Square Enix Store (in Japanese)
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for December 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
Another year has passed, so let's have a look at what happened in 2017! We'll start with:
The monthly #1 pixel art from January to December
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for November 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The Curious Expedition has released the game’s content for free on GitHub.
This includes all the image files of the game, which is often praised for its unique and beautiful pixelart.
This decision is accompanying the release of full modding support, including Steam Workshop integration. With the available image and script files, remixing and creating new content for The Curious Expedition should be as smooth as possible. This offers a unique insight into the development tools and design of a procedural game.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for October 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for September 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for August 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for July 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for June 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
This year's LowRez game jam is starting soon! Developers and Artist will have two weeks to make a full game in a 64x64 pixel window starting July 31st.. You can work in teams or solo. Check out the links below for more information.
Here is the link to the official page on itch.io.
Community Link, for finding a team or joining the discussion.
If you're not into making a game, you can still participate by playing the games at the jam's closing. Last year there were over 300 entries!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for May 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for April 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for March 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
Announcing the winners of the 22 color palette contest!
First Place - DawnBringer
Second Place - JerryPie
Third Place - atprises
Honorable Mentions - Xaiue, Nevercreature & Irenaart
Congratulations to all who contributed a palette. Excellent and deserving good palettes by all. Anyone using a palette for their work remember its nice to credit the creator.
Winners were chosen by your Mod staff and invited PJers ArcadeHero, cure, Veli, and pyrometal (pre-moderator) by ballot.
A big thank you to everyone who participated in this competition. A total of 29 palettes were submitted making the final decision very challenging!
Winning palettes:
DB-ISO22 by DawnBringer
JerryPie
atprises
Xaiue
Nevercreature
Irenaart
This competition was to pick the palette for the next PJ forum iso collaboration as well as side-collaboration, which will both be posted in the near future.
Do not touch that dial and stay tuned for more!
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for January 2017. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
Pixeljoint is holding another palette competition which is open to everyone and is quite simple.
Submit your 22 color unique + original color palette.
The winning palette will be used in PJs next ISOcollab, and an additional palette will be chosen to be used in a side collab.
Add a rare trophy to your profile.
Competition closes in 2 weeks, February 14, 2017. (OPEN!)
Forum Thread HERE
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for December 2016. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
Awesome Games Done Quick (aka AGDQ) is live on https://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick
The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for November 2016. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.
Recently we've released our game Pocket Kingdom on which we worked for more than 1.5 years (it started on end of spring 2015). Some of you guys should already know about that game, as Winged Doom (or 08--n7.r6-79.84) posted several location mockups from the game on PJ.
You can now buy the Vlambeer (Dutch indie game studio) art book at Cook & Becker! Get it HERE. Lots of pixel art and game development stories!
Nykra is a 2D platformer adventure game created by pixel artist / indie dev Seth Groom aka ENDESGA.
The game has some great pixel art, and has a week left in it's kickstarter, and could use a little push.
Link to kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/endesga/nykra
DjinnGames is actually developing a video game for PC named Mazgeon - the life dungeon.
 |  |  |  |
 | All Saints' Day November 1st |
 | Day of the Dead/El Dia de Los Muertos/All Souls Day November 2nd |
 | Ramadan / Ramadhan Ninth month of the Islamic calendar (Oct/Nov/Dec) |
 | Thanksgiving (USA) Fourth Thursday in November |
 | Veterans Day November 11th |
| More holidays | |
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