Pixel Art - Like Legos. But more AWESOME

So, I ranted about the underappreciated style of black and white illustration, and started to touch on my love for pixel art. So now, I think I'll complete my thoughts on it!

Pixel Art is the art of using small blocks, that are generally the smallest visual element of a video image, in order to make images. This was a lot easier to do, when our screens had resolutions that were only a few hundred blocks wide and tall.

But now, we have screens that are almost 2000 dots wide, and almost as tall. QUITE the increase, when you're drawing dot-by-dot, eh?

Thus, this art style isn't used nearly as often anymore. You have to redraw every animation you want in pixel art. Why would anyone go through so much work, when they can just make the character in 3D, create some animations, and use the animations across any characters of similar size and proportion?

My reasoning? There's a lot more heart in pixel art. You KNOW that every odd dot in pixel work was personally put there, to convey something. Every little grin, every eye wink, every flop of hair. When it's done well, it's like watching a classic Disney movie! They really animated SO MUCH in their traditional films. If you compare their movie animation, to every day televised animation, it was like the difference of watching 1 leaf blowing in the wind, versus watching a whole field of petals, each and every one with it's own dynamic, fresh movement.

SNKP's newest game, King of Fighters XII, is one of the first "Next Gen" games to try and make Pixel Art work on modern consoles. The game has a lot of rough spots, and doesn't have all the characters and animations of it's predecessors. However, if you look at the pieces that ARE there, they have an insane amount of care put into them.



It's the first new 2D game in years that I didn't have to look at, and pick out were the "Adobe Flash" looking motions looked awkward. Don't get me wrong, games like Odin Sphere and Castle Crashers are fantastic looking 2D works. But I always found the "flash" look to bring an unfitting "3D" like smoothness to 2D, that just doesn't look as pleasing as pure pixel work animations.

I've done 2D pixel animations, and I've done 3D modeling and animation as well. To me, the goal of 3D, in my eyes, is to live up to the quality that 2D has already established for YEARS. (The opposite of all who wish 3D just to be used for realism, eh?) 3D games are still trying to replicate the depth of animation, character interaction, cloth movement, and unique color and personality, that we saw in 16 and 24 bit (Neo Geo!) video games. Street Fighter IV is probably the best I've seen, when it comes to capturing the animation personality and variety. And the Dragon Ball series of fighters, plus Namco's recent games like Eternal Sonata, and Tales of Vesperia, are probably the closest at getting the colors, mood, and finer points of 2D animation accurate.

But that's still "Catch up". We still don't have 3D side scrolling shooters that are as awesome as the Metal Slug shooters. We still don't have 3D fighters that have as many character interactions, little unique animations, and individual personality as KoF 98.

Thus, I think there's still a reason for Pixel work to exist. I don't think 3D will ever replace solid 2D. Top 2D artist and top 3D artist should each have their place. The gaming industry seems not to agree, but I hope we see that change. KoF XII is a rough start, but at least we now have something to suggest "SEE, it can be done!"

The next step could come from SNKP. It could come from independent game developers who are inspired by their work. It could come from ME! (^_^) I just want to see it happen!