Watch Dennou Coil, the most underrated anime pretty much ever. 

Yes, this is the standard of animation throughout the series. 

AND THIS IS A FILLER EPISODE. 

It’s basically about kids with what’s essentially Google Glass: The Game. The whole world is affected by this game. Traffic lights, school, anything. 

It’s good in the beginning and gets really, really good by the end. 

Shows the vulnerabilities of children.

Well-written children in general. They fall under some tropes but they don’t suffer from the usual fallacies of writing children into series. 

Last Updated: March 30 2016

Quick Links:

Download

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OpenToonz v1.0.1 (fixes Windows crash issue) Direct Download

Tutorials/Tips:

My basic tutorial (text/images)

Basic Tutorial by admiringapostates (video)

Tips from dundee998 (text)

Overview Of OpenToonz (Not So Quickstart) (video)

Interface Customization (video)

OpenToonz Motion Path: Creating Motion Tweens (video)

Importing Images Tutorial by pixelsprite (text/images)

Swatches Tutorial by vividjeff (text/images)

Inserting Audio (video)

Basics and Rendering (video)

Follow-up Asks/Answers:

Video exporting & Video exporting 2

Language options

Trouble opening on Macs

Fullscreen issue on Macs

Saving Levels/Files

Setting hotkeys

Clarification on onion skin and 2′s

Windows crash fix for dual-monitor users

Windows 10 crash fixes

So my historical costuming resources list from 2011 was less than a page long- I’m not saying that I’ve learned a lot in the past three years, but this list is now sitting pretty at a solid nine pages.  Whew.  And people wonder why I want to redo this damn series.

This list is by no means an exhaustive one- it’s a list of (primarily western) historical fashion resources, both online and offline, that is limited to what I know, own, or use!  It’s a work in progress, and I’m definitely hoping to expand on it as my knowledge base grows.  First things first, how about a little:

ADVICE FOR RESEARCHING HISTORICAL FASHION

Read, and read about more than just costuming.  Allowing yourself to understand the cultural and historical context surrounding the clothing of a particular region/period can be invaluable in sussing out good costume design.  Looking at pictures is all well and good, but reading about societal pressures, about construction techniques, daily routines, local symbolism, whatever else will really help you understand the rhyme and reason behind costuming from any given context.

Expand your costume vocabulary.  When you’re delving into a new topic, costuming or otherwise, picking up new terminology is essential to proper understanding and furthering your research.  Write down or take note of terms as you come across them- google them, look up synonyms, and use those words as a jumping off point for more research.  What’s a wire rebato?  How does it differ from a supportasse?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Double-check your sources.  Especially on the internet, and double especially on tumblr.  I love it, but it’s ground zero for rapidly spreading misinformation.  Books are usually your safest bet, but also take into account their date of publication, who’s writing them- an author’s biases can severely mangle their original source material.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help.  Do everything you can to find out information on your own, but feel free to reach out to people with more specialized areas of knowledge for help!  Be considerate about it- the people you’re asking are busy as well- but a specific line of questioning that proves you’re passionate and that you respect their subject matter expertise can work wonders.

Okay, onto the links!

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of getting off the internet and looking into books!  God bless the internet, but books are (generally, this isn’t a rule) better-researched and better-sourced.  Bibliographies also mean each individual books can be a jumping off point for further research, which is always a fantastic thing.

Remember- owning books is awesome and you should absolutely assemble your own library of resources, but LIBRARIES.  Libraries.  You’ll be surprised to find what books are available to you at your local library.

GENERAL / SURVEYS

British Costume from Earliest Times to 1820 Fine book with lots of first hand sources, but be wary of the photography in the book- reproduction costumes and thus somewhat less reliable.  Though hilarious.

Corsets and Crinolines Norah Waugh’s invaluable survey of corsetry and corset patterns- used the world ‘round by modern corsetieres.

Costume in Detail: Women’s Dress 1730-1930 Elaborate line drawings/diagrams of extant period garments!  A fantastic survey.

Cut of Men’s Clothes PDF available online!  Patterns for men’s period garments.

Cut of Women’s Clothes Patterns for women’s period garments.

Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through World History This is a library find, unless you have a pretty three hundred bucks lying around- a great, general resource.

A History of Costume A lot of good text and info, to be taken with a grain of salt. Be wary of any reconstructions and or “supposed” patterns that aren’t directly based on extant garments or firsthand accounts.

Fashion (Taschen 25th Anniversary) A survey of the Kyoto Costume Institute’s fashion collection- broad but beautiful.  On every fashion student’s bookcase.

Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style Great overview of fashion history from the Smithsonian and DK publishing.

The History of Costume: From the Ancient Mesopotamians Through the Twentieth Century Broad costume survey, second edition.

What People Wore: 1,800 Illustrations from Ancient Times to the Early Twentieth Century this is one of those “I am putting this here because I used it a ton when I was younger” but man, mixed bag.  Really cool survey to browse through, but also work that is a copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy in most instances and thus not necessarily trustworthy as a resource.

What People Wore When: A Complete Illustrated History of Costume from Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century for Every Level of Society A collection of Racinet and Hottentoth’s costume plates from the 19th century.  A beautiful survey but, since these are later illustrations, to be taken with a grain of salt.

Patterns fo Fashion books Detailed, hand-drawn diagrams of historical fashion, inside and out.  Pretty amazing stuff.

Patterns of Fashion: The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women, C.1560-1620

Patterns of Fashion 1: Englishwomen’s Dresses & Their Construction C. 1660-1860

Patterns of Fashion 2: Englishwomen’s Dresses & Their Construction C. 1860-1940

Patterns of Fashion 4: The Cut and Construction of Linen Shirts, Smocks, Neckwear, Headwear and Accessories for Men and Women C. 1540-1660

Fashion in Detail books Not what you want if you’re looking for photos of entire costumes- note the “in detail” bit up there.  Just a beautiful series, and great reference for all the little things you might miss otherwise.  The V&A has an amazing fashion collection, and it’s great to see them share it with the world.

Nineteenth Century Fashion in Detail

Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Fashion in Detail

Underwear: Fashion in Detail

World Dress: Fashion in Detail The one non-western entry in the series.

Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700 - 1915 LACMA’s response to the V&A’s series mentioned above, also an invaluable resource for historical fashion detail.

The Pixel Art Mega Post

Pixel Art Tutorials, Tools, Games, Sites, Tributes, Masterpieces

1.) PIXEL ART TUTORIALS

Pixel Art Tutorial (by Derek Yu)

HD Index Painting in Photoshop as Article and Video (by Dan Fessler)

No Bullshit Pixel Art Tutorial (by Retronator)

Pixel Art Knowledge (by various Pixel Artists)

Pixel Art Tutorial (by Cure)

Pixel Art Tutorial (by Android Arts)

Pixel Purism: Process vs Results (by Dan Fessler)

Pixelation Knowledge Repository (by Helm)

6 Pixel Art Drawing Techniques as Video (by GDQuest)

What the Heck is Pixel Art (by Pix3M)

Pixel Art Process - or 8 steps to a polished result (by Cyangmou)

Perfect Pixel Art with Specular and Bump Lighting in Unity (by Anton Kudin)

ISOmetric Pixel Art Cheat Sheet (by Dennis Busch)

GIMP Pixel Art Tool Setup Tutorial as Video (by Retronator)

Run Cycle Tutorial (by Glauber Kotaki)

Pixel Art Tutorials (by finalbossblues)

A Little Guide to Pixel Art (by Simon Hunter)

Secret Weapons and Tactics for Better Pixel Art (by 2D Will Never Die)

Pixel Art Tutorials (by drbubu)

Pixel Art Tutorial (by Studio Purloux)

Pixel Art Academy (by Retronator)

2.) PIXEL ART TOOLS

Free Pixel Art Tools:

Piskel [Windows/Mac + Browser]

Pixel Art Editor [Browser] -with collaborative editing mode-

Asesprite 0.95 [Windows/Mac/Linux]

Grafx2 [Windows/Mac/Linux]

Paint.NET [Windows]

GIMP [Windows/Mac/Linux] 

Paint [Windows]

Pixly [Android]

Commercial Pixel Art Tools:

Photoshop [Windows/Mac]

Pro Motion [Windows]

Pyxel Edit [Windows/Mac]

Asesprite [Windows/Mac]

GraphicsGale [Windows]

Pixaki [iPad]

Sprite Something [iPhone/iPad]

Sprite Lamp [Windows/Mac/Linux]

Pixel Art Tutorials:

Collection of Pixel Art Tutorials

Other related Tools:

Voxel Art Tools:

Qubicle [Windows/Mac] -Commercial-

MagicaVoxel [Windows/Mac] -Free-

Hexel Tools:

Hexels [Windows/Mac] -Commercial-

GIF Creation Tools and Tutorials:

Ways to create animated GIFs

Game Making Tools:

The Big List of Game Making Tools

3.) PIXEL ART SITES / COMMUNITIES

Pixel Dailies

Pixel Joint

TIGSource Tumblr and TIGSource Forums

Retronator Magazine and Retronator Tumblr

PixelArtus

Pixelation

DeviantArt Groups (Pixel Artists and G-Pixel)

2D Will Never Die

4.) GAMES WITH PIXEL ART (PART 1)

Curses N Chaos

Odallus: The Dark Call

Tick Tock Isle

Freedom Planet

Tower57

Iconoclasts

Eitr

Heart Forth, Alicia

Olympia Rising

Shovel Knight

MegaSpehre

Mercenary Kings

Maldita Castilla

Foxtail

Beard Blade

More Games with Pixel Art can be found here

5.) GAMES WITH PIXEL ART (PART 2)

Into The Rift

Witchmarsh

CrossCode

NeuroVoider

Cerulean Moon

Dungeon of the Endless

Timespinner

Owlboy

Hive Jump

Leilani’s Island

Chasm

Ninja Senki

CoinOp Story

Starr Mazer

VHS Story

More Games with Pixel Art can be found here

6.) PIXEL ART MASTERPIECES (PART 1)

Pixel Art Diorama - Treasure (by cocefi)

Pixels, Huh - Scene #14 ‘Ben’ (by Octavi Navarro)

Level 4 - Hell! (by vierbit)

Autonomous Space Suit (by Oncle Gab)

Pixel Art Diorama - Fishing Spot (by cocefi)

Neo(n) Pixel Art I - Ceremony (by valenberg)

Platformer House (by bugpixel)

Cyberpunk Pixel Art (by Jason Tammemagi)

Pixel Art Diorama - Bookkeeper’s Garden (by cocefi)

Vikings Tavern (by albertov)

Panduranga Temple (by Socnau)

A Donkey’s Life (by iLKke)

Pixel Art Diorama - (Re)Drawn to Life (by cocefi)

Neo(n) Pixel Art II - Neon Bounty Hunters (by valenberg)

zero (by valenberg)

Neo(n) Pixel Art II - Jet Plastic (by valenberg)

More Pixel Art Masterpieces can be found here

7.) PIXEL ART TRIBUTES TO GAMES (PART 1)

Tribute (by retronator)

Mirror’s Edge (by junkboy)

Bayonetta (by junkboy)

Smash Bros. - Mario and Mega Man (by AbyssWolf)

The Last of Us (by pwang)

Left 4 Dead 2 (by AbyssWolf)

God of War (by pwang)

Smash Bros. - Samus in Zero Suit (by AbyssWolf)

Smash Bros. - Samus in Power Suit (by AbyssWolf)

Hyrule Warriors - Link (by AbyssWolf)

Colossal Katamari (by snakepixel)

Dark Souls - Beat Them All Demake (by Mr_HK_)

Isometric TF2: Badlands (by gas13)

Metroid - Mockup (by Robin Wouters)

Dark Souls II - Bonfire (by Bandygrass)

Alien Isolation (by jonroru)

Dark Souls (by zedotagger)

Captain Toad (by Paul Robertson)

Chip and Dale 3 - Mockup (by snakepixel)

Turrican II (by junkboy)

Super ISO Bros: The Other Side (by Emperor_Pixel)

Splatoon (by Davitsu)

A New Wario Land - Mockup (by snakepixel)

Metal Gear Solid - Psycho Mantis Battle (by tenpoundpixel)

More Pixel Art Tributes to Games can be found here

8.) PIXEL ART TRIBUTES TO MOVIES (PART 1)

Adventure Time - Finn and Jake (by AbyssWolf)

8-Bit Ghibli: My Neighbor Totoro (by Richard J. Evans)

Akira (by mazeon)

Adventure Time - Swords (by Luciana Nascimento)

Star Wars - Millenium Falcon in Asteroid Field (by mazeon)

The Pix Lebowski (by Spiddrelli)

Adventure Time - Treehouse (by Gengar)

Tron (by mazeon)

Game of Thrones (by Czarek Luczynski)

8-Bit Ghibli: Princess Mononoke (by Richard J. Evans)

Game of Thrones (by Orkimides)

Mad Max: Fury Road (by Mazok Pixels and Misha Petrick)

Simpsons Pixels (by Paul Robertson and Ivan Dixon)

Watchmen: Rorschach (by mazeon)

Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan (by mazeon)

The Dark Knight: Joker’s Car Chase (by Bruno Moraes)

updated: Jun/25*

This is not coding related, I know, but gamedev-learning related enough to be here! :) I’ve been asked about learning resources for 3D modeling and tried to make a list of tutorials I could remember - I’m highlighting the ones I’ve tried myself but I’ve heard good things about all of these. This list is low poly focused but the knowledge can be applied for anything else. 

I haven’t been doing this for long - I started learning 3D a year ago and have been ever since but as a 2D artist the technical side of it still overwhelms me a lot. I’ve gone nowhere near animation yet but I’ve been adventuring with low poly quite a lot (which you can check out in #OceanHeart (image above) and #GemuNoGemu, - I also put up assets pics in a Trello here as well as stuff on my website). I mainly use Maya (now Maya LT) but I’ve been trying to tackle Blender too. Here are some helpful goodies I’ve found:

Maya:

I started learning Maya with this series of videos on youtube by Misterh3d. I watched through units 1-7 and it’s a pretty great introduction! Nicely paced, covers a bunch you gotta know.

A series on Low poly for game assets using Maya 2015

Blender:

Blender 3D - Noob to Pro: for the basics! :)

And another Blender course for beginners

The super popular Secrets to Creating Low Poly Illustrations On Blender - great intro to making some low poly goodness :)

Blender Cookie - CGCookie is a website that has a bunch of awesome tutorials (loads for free) on many softwares, including Unity. Take a look at this Low Poly Game Asset Creation tutorial.

Some character creation tutorials by ward7299

Bunch of really cool low poly tutorials here by Manuel Graphics!

A Minecraft character modeling and texturing tutorial

All things 3D/low poly:

Creating a low poly treasure island

PigArt: rad speedart/timelapses of adorable looking low poly art, lots to learn from watching these :)

Digital Tutors has loads of 3D modeling tutorials, some free some paid. Tried a few of those and they’re pretty cool!

Cool Misc stuff:

Blender Cycles rendering introduction

Creating flat colored low poly art. This is how I currently color all assets for Gemu (I used to color using materials or vertex colors before because I can’t stand UV unwrapping but this is a pretty easy alternative) 

Please do check the Polycount forum, so many cool references and useful info! Also do check their low poly thread :)

There’s also reddit’s /low_poly

Study Files:

Cocefi kindly uploaded a low poly model for download here :)

You can download models on Sketchfab! Here are some popular low poly ones

Lots of cool Cinema 4D project files for download here

Missmoo 3D:*

Streaming: I often stream some of my modeling on Oceanheart and I’m always happy to share what I know :)

My Sketchfab: I’ll be uploading some models for download shortly here

This is how I texture my models for Oceanheart - I’m always sharing wip and processes in our devblog

Rad people making awesome 3D stuff:*

@PIXELATEDCROWN

@turnislefthome

@chickysprout

@metkis

@korigame

@GarretRandell

@IMPLODINGORACLE

@ultrakurtzwelle

@khalkeus3d

@AckkStudios

@q_dork

@andmish

@heatpenn

@dicey

@torahhorse

@mushbuh

There are a couple of places I will visit on occasion, but it will vary based on your relative amount of knowledge and understanding of the process. Here’s some stuff I would suggest.

General Game Development:

Extra Credits on Youtube - A great bird’s-eye view series of videos (updated weekly) of how things work in various aspects of the industry.

Gamedev.net - A page and forum for video game developers of all walks of experience.

Gamasutra.com - Probably the best resource for more experienced developers. Gamasutra has a lot of articles and blog posts written by developers from indie to AAA and everything in between. Many articles assume an inherent level of knowledge, however, which may make it less easy to digest than the others. Also has job listings.

GDC Vault - A collection of free (and subscription) videos from past Game Developer Conference talks.

Specific Stuff:

Programming: Stack Exchange - A great general programming resource where you can ask questions and bored programmers will answer them.

Game Writing: David Gaider’s game development tag - David is the lead writer for the Dragon Age franchise. He has several great writing-specific posts about game development.

MMO Development: Eldergame.com - Eric Heimburg is an old hand at MMO development, having worn multiple hats on multiple AAA MMOGs, and is currently working on his own indie MMOG called Project Gorgon.

MMO Development: RaphKoster.com - Raph Koster is one of the oldest hands in the MMOG game, and he is the one who first identified a lot of the theory we use to construct games today.

Animation and Art: Art-eater.com - I first discovered this blog through some posts about the twelve principles of animation, and I was hooked. It’s a fantastic resource with some amazing analysis on art, with the heavy emphasis on animation.

3D Modeling: Polycount’s forums - There’s no better forum for budding 3D artists to learn, show off their work, or ask for advice. Those showing off their work or offering advice are often industry veterans. There’s no better forum for hopeful artists to get real constructive critiques and advice on their work.

1929 Swedish poster for THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (Richard Oswald, Germany, 1929)

Designer: uncredited