This semi-regular feature will be focusing on some of the stupidest news stories on our wonderful planet.  All these stories are true and the people are as real as they are stupid.

VANCOUVER, Wash. - A man led police on a very slow-speed chase, refusing to stop while riding a lawn mower at about 3 mph across a busy street and steering it toward an officer before he was grabbed and arrested, a police report says.

Hey there good people.

Pixel Joint is moving to another server very soon (next week or so) and we might have a few bugs including a full-blown system outage.  I've created a WordPress Blog to keep you posted just in case pixeljoint.com is unavailable.

Thanks!

deviantART is running a new competition in celebration of the Chinese Year of the Rat. The objective is to create a piece of pixel art displaying the subject of a rat or rats, using a limited colour palette of no more than 25 colours on a canvas size of 150x150pixels. Either GIF or PNG files are acceptable. It has started now and runs through to the 18th March.

Prizes....
First Prize will be $dA100 deviant dollars
Second Prize will be $dA50 deviant dollars
Third Prize will be $dA25 deviant dollars

These can be redeemed for anything from the deviantART shop including a subscription if that is desired.

If you enter please note me a link to your work on deviantART to http://www.deviantart.com/ and make a note in your artist comments it is for the competition.

If you you have not received a DD feature within the last three months the winner will also be featured with a DD.

The lovely MashPotato challenges you to pixel a sprite that would be at home in a non-stop-action-packed, side-scrolling 2D platformer... taking place in an art gallery!

Pick a famous sculpture or painting and bring it to life by transforming it into an enemy or hero sprite
People paintings do not have to stay in their canvas.
For example. the Mona Lisa can have leg and arms and does not need to be in the frame.

Animation: required; must be an attack, idle, walking, or death animation
Transparency: required only if you only make the sprite. Mockups do not need transparency.
Canvas Size: no restrictions
Colours: 24 (includes transparency)
References: please link to the original artwork, regardless of how well-known you think it is.

The challenge thread will have all the challenge updates. The thread is also a great place to post your WIPs.

The WIP Stages pixel art challenge is complete and we have three new champions. This week's challenge awards go to the following pieces:



Thanks so much to all who took the time to vote and participate in the challenge! Check out the WIP Stages forum thread for more information.

It's time to head on over to the forum and vote for the latest pixel art challenge: Who Killed Mr. Body.

VOTE NOW!

A humorous video focusing on forums using pixel art for the visuals. Neat-o.

Check it.

Pixelart based on the game Clue/Cluedo.
Pixel a scene/sprite/mockup representing... who with what weapon in which room.

Rules: No limitations this week, if its not written its allowed.

The challenge thread will have all the challenge updates. The thread is also a great place to post your WIPs.

The Blood-Fire-Rage-Hate pixel art challenge is complete and we have three new champions. This week's challenge awards go to the following pieces:



Thanks so much to all who took the time to vote and participate in the challenge! Check out the Blood-Fire-Rage-Hate forum thread for more information.

It's time to head on over to the forum and vote for the latest pixel art challenge: WIP Stages.

VOTE NOW!

Paint.net has got to be one of the best freeware programs I have seen to battle MS paint.  Not only is it free, its also open source!  It has a bunch of awesome features that put somewhere between MS paint and Photoshop.

Features include...

• layers
• layer effects
• dither brushes
• better palette control
• image color adjustments
• and much much more.

Given it's written in .net, I wonder how hard it would be to make a canvas-networking plugin?  the possibilities are endless!  Definitely give this program a try.

-Dan

Great news for the pixel art community, and especially 7even who's Okami 2D mockup got featured on Kotaku today!

And welcome to any kotakuists new to the joint - have a look around! There are tons of great pixel art to be found and seen :)

TITLE: Top Pixel Art - February 2008

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The following pixel artists produced Pixel Joint's top rated pixel art for February 2008. Many thanks go out to this month's top pixel artists and all the members who took time to rate.

A contest by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, where the artists were limited to using a single sheet of paper, has sparked some impressive results. Not quite pixel art, but certainly minimalist.

Check out the entries here.

This week's challenge comes from Gas 13 and is a study on showing pixelling steps and procedures. Its a 5 frame minimum step animation.

1. Use this template. (frame 1)
    
2. When you see something in the template, make the lineart. (frame 2)
3. Find the shapes and volumes and develop them. (frames 3 & 4)*
4. Refine and finished piece. (frame 5)
5. Canvas size is fixed but may be on transparent background.
6. Color palette is unlimited but must be shown in the animation.
7. Create the WIP animation (from the above frames), 5 frame minimum.
* You may make more than 2 frames on #3 as needed.

Link(s) for free/demo/shareware PC animation programs:
1: http://www.gamani.com/  demo 30 days
2: ProMotion   limited demo
3: EasyGif  limited demo, 20 uses only !!!!!
4: Gif construction  demo, looks easy

For MACs
gif builder  100% free ;)

You may also try posting your frames in the challenge thread for another PJ member to animate for you once finished. If you do this please keep your frame count to a minimum. Ask for help and give yourself enough time and be patient (its a favor).

For a visual example of this challenge see the image shown in the page below:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/59238378/

The challenge thread will have all the challenge updates. The thread is also a great place to post your WIPs.

It's time to head on over to the forum and vote for the latest pixel art challenge: Blood-Fire-Rage-Hate.

VOTE NOW!

The The Walls Have Ears... pixel art challenge is complete and we have three new champions. This week's challenge awards go to the following pieces:



Thanks so much to all who took the time to vote and participate in the challenge! Check out the The Walls Have Ears... forum thread for more information.

Challenge winner dakael challenges you to pixel these words as played in a major part in human history. Pick up at least any two of these abstracts and illustrate them. Be creative! This time imagination is the key.

Canvas size:
 - Minimum resolution: 25.6 kpx (for example: 160x160, 256x100)
 - Maximum resolution: 64 kpx (for example: 640x100, 320x200)
Maximum number of colors: 32
Animation: allowed
Transparency: not allowed

Have fun!

PS. What is kpx? It's a prefix 'kilo', so kpx means kilopixel, and it stands for 1000 pixels. "

*PJ Staff note, dakael is a nerd XD

The challenge thread will have all the challenge updates. The thread is also a great place to post your WIPs.

The Cut Scene pixel art challenge is complete and we have three new champions. This week's challenge awards go to the following pieces:



Thanks so much to all who took the time to vote and participate in the challenge! Check out the Cut Scene forum thread for more information.

It's time to head on over to the forum and vote for the latest pixel art challenge: The Walls Have Ears....

VOTE NOW!