Ya Allah, I ask You to cover me, to refine my heart, to discipline my nature, to improve my character, to regulate my behavior, and I ask You to occupy me with goals that are worthy of Your path, to bless me with wisdom in speech, the art of silence, eloquence in response, majesty in presence, and grace in absence.
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Today God has honored me by returning me to my city, Rafah, the fortress of steadfastness, after we escaped certain death due to Israel’s breach of the truce. We went to Rafah, and I was filled with sadness and tears that never left my eyes. It is a very strange and sad feeling to stand on the rubble of your home. It is not only the house that has gone, but the memories, dreams, and ambitions have gone, even the joy has gone and will not return.
Mohammed needs help paying for medical treatment for his wife and young son, as well as transportation and food. Your assistance is really vital as this family fight to restart their lives.
Hello, my name is Tofu and I'm a professional pixel artist. I have been supporting myself with freelance pixel art since 2020, when I was let go from my job during the pandemic.
My progress, from 2017 to 2024. IMO the only thing that really matters is time and effort, not some kind of natural talent for art.
This guide will not be comprehensive, as nobody should be expected to read allat. Instead I will lean heavily on my own experience, and share what worked for me, so take everything with a grain of salt. This is a guide, not a tutorial. Cheers!
🔹 Do I need money?
NO!!! Pixel art is one of the most accessible mediums out there.
I still use a mouse because I prefer it to a tablet! You won't be at any disadvantage here if you can't afford the best hardware or software.
Because our canvases are typically very small, you don't need a good PC to run a good brush engine or anything like that.
✨Did you know? One of the most skilled and beloved pixel artists uses MS PAINT! Wow!!
🔹 What software should I use?
Here are some of the most popular programs I see my friends and peers using.
Stars show how much I recommend the software for beginners! ⭐
💰 Paid options:
⭐⭐⭐ Aseprite (for PC) - $19.99
This is what I and many other pixel artists use. You may find when applying to jobs that they require some knowledge of Aseprite. Since it has become so popular, companies like that you can swap raw files between artists.
Aseprite is amazingly customizable, with custom skins, scripts and extensions on Itch.io, both free and paid.
If you have ever used any art software before, it has most of the same features and should feel fairly familiar to use. It features a robust animation suite and a tilemap feature, which have saved me thousands of hours of labour in my work. The software is also being updated all the time, and the developers listen to the users. I really recommend Aseprite!
⭐ Photoshop (for PC) - Monthly $$
A decent option for those who already are used to the PS interface. Requires some setup to get it ready for pixel-perfect art, but there are plenty of tutorials for doing so.
Animation is also much more tedious on PS which you may want to consider before investing time!
⭐⭐ ProMotion NG (for PC) - $19.00
An advanced and powerful software which has many features Aseprite does not, including Colour Cycling and animated tiles.
⭐⭐⭐ Pixquare (for iOS) - $7.99 - $19.99
Probably the best app available for iPad users, in active development, with new features added all the time.
Look! My buddy Jon recommends it highly, and uses it often.
One cool thing about Pixquare is that it takes Aseprite raw files! Many of my friends use it to work on the same project, both in their office and on the go.
⭐ Procreate (for iOS) - $12.99
If you have access to Procreate already, it's a decent option to get used to doing pixel art. It does however require some setup. Artist Pixebo is famously using Procreate, and they have tutorials of their own if you want to learn.
🆓 Free options:
⭐⭐⭐ Libresprite (for PC)
Libresprite is an alternative to Aseprite. It is very, very similar, to the point where documentation for Aseprite will be helpful to Libresprite users.
⭐⭐ Pixilart (for PC and mobile)
A free in-browser app, and also a mobile app! It is tied to the website Pixilart, where artists upload and share their work. A good option for those also looking to get involved in a community.
⭐⭐ Dotpict (for mobile)
Dotpict is similar to Pixilart, with a mobile app tied to a website, but it's a Japanese service. Did you know that in Japanese, pixel art is called 'Dot Art'?
Dotpict can be a great way to connect with a different community of pixel artists! They also have prompts and challenges often.
🔹 So I got my software, now what?
◽Nice! Now it's time for the basics of pixel art.
❗ WAIT ❗ Before this section, I want to add a little disclaimer. All of these rules/guidelines can be broken at will, and some 'no-nos' can look amazing when done intentionally.
The pixel-art fundamentals can be exceedingly helpful to new artists, who may feel lost or overwhelmed by choice. But if you feel they restrict you too harshly, don't force yourself! At the end of the day it's your art, and you shouldn't try to contort yourself into what people think a pixel artist 'should be'. What matters is your own artistic expression. 💕👍
◽Phew! With that out of the way...
🔸"The Rules"
There are few hard 'rules' of pixel art, mostly about scaling and exporting. Some of these things will frequently trip up newbies if they aren't aware, and are easy to overlook.
🔹Scaling method
There are a couple ways of scaling your art. The default in most art programs, and the entire internet, is Bi-linear scaling, which usually works out fine for most purposes. But as pixel artists, we need a different method.
Both are scaled up x10. See the difference?
On the left is scaled using Bilinear, and on the right is using Nearest-Neighbor. We love seeing those pixels stay crisp and clean, so we use nearest-neighbor.
(Most pixel-art programs have nearest-neighbor enabled by default! So this may not apply to you, but it's important to know.)
🔹Mixels
Mixels are when there are different (mixed) pixel sizes in the same image.
Here I have scaled up my art- the left is 200%, and the right is 150%. Yuck!
As we can see, the "pixel" sizes end up different. We generally try to scale our work by multiples of 100 - 200%, 300% etc. rather than 150%. At larger scales however, the minute differences in pixel sizes are hardly noticeable!
Mixels are also sometimes seen when an artist scales up their work, then continues drawing on it with a 1 pixel brush.
Many would say that this is not great looking! This type of pixels can be indicative of a beginner artist. But there are plenty of creative pixel artists out there who mixels intentionally, making something modern and cool.
🔹Saving Your Files
We usually save our still images as .PNGs as they don’t create any JPEG artifacts or loss of quality. It's a little hard to see here, but there are some artifacts, and it looks a little blurry. It also makes the art very hard to work with if we are importing a JPEG.
For animations .GIF is good, but be careful of the 256 colour limit. Try to avoid using too many blending mode layers or gradients when working with animations. If you aren’t careful, your animation could flash afterwards, as the .GIF tries to reduce colours wherever it can. It doesn’t look great!
Here's an old piece from 2021 where I experienced .GIF lossiness, because I used gradients and transparency, resulting in way too many colours.
🔹Pixel Art Fundamentals - Techniques and Jargon
❗❗Confused about Jaggies? Anti-Aliasing? Banding? Dithering? THIS THREAD is for you❗❗
As far as I'm concerned, this is THE tutorial of all time for understanding pixel art. These are techniques created and named by the community of people who actually put the list together, some of the best pixel artists alive currently. Please read it!!
🔸How To Learn
Okay, so you have your software, and you're all ready to start. But maybe you need some more guidance? Try these tutorials and resources! It can be helpful to work along with a tutorial until you build your confidence up.
⭐⭐ Pixel Logic (A Digital Book) - $10
A very comprehensive visual guide book by a very skilled and established artist in the industry. I own a copy myself.
⭐⭐⭐ StudioMiniBoss - free
A collection of visual tutorials, by the artist that worked on Celeste! When starting out, if I got stuck, I would go and scour his tutorials and see how he did it.
⭐ Lospec Tutorials - free
A very large collection of various tutorials from all over the internet. There is a lot to sift through here if you have the time.
⭐⭐⭐ Cyangmou's Tutorials - free (tipping optional)
Cyangmou is one of the most respected and accomplished modern pixel artists, and he has amassed a HUGE collection of free and incredibly well-educated visual tutorials.
He also hosts an educational stream every week on Twitch called 'pixelart for beginners'.
⭐⭐⭐ Youtube Tutorials - free
There are hundreds, if not thousands of tutorials on YouTube, but it can be tricky to find the good ones.
My personal recommendations are MortMort, Brandon, and AdamCYounis- these guys really know what they're talking about!
🔸Where To Post
Outside of just regular socials, Twitter, Tumblr, Deviantart, Instagram etc, there are a few places that lean more towards pixel art that you might not have heard of.
⭐ Lospec
Lospec is a low-res focused art website. Some pieces get given a 'monthly masterpiece' award. Not incredibly active, but I believe there are more features being added often.
⭐⭐ Pixilart
Pixilart is a very popular pixel art community, with an app tied to it. The community tends to lean on the young side, so this is a low-pressure place to post with an relaxed vibe.
⭐⭐ Pixeljoint
Pixeljoint is one of the big, old-school pixel art websites. You can only upload your art unscaled (1x) because there is a built-in zoom viewer.
It has a bit of a reputation for being elitist (back in the 00s it was), but in my experience it's not like that any more. This is a fine place for a pixel artist to post if they are really interested in learning, and the history.
The Hall of Fame has some of the most famous / impressive pixel art pieces that paved the way for the work we are doing today.
⭐⭐⭐ Cafe Dot
Cafe Dot is my art server so I'm a little biased here. 🍵
It was created during the recent social media turbulence. We wanted a place to post art with no algorithms, and no NFT or AI chuds. We have a heavy no-self-promotion rule, and are more interested in community than skill or exclusivity.
The other thing is that we have some kind of verification system- you must apply to be a Creator before you can post in the Art feed, or use voice. This helps combat the people who just want to self-promo and dip, or cause trouble, as well as weed out AI/NFT people.
Until then, you are still welcome to post in any of the threads or channels. There is a lot to do in Cafe Dot. I host events weekly, so check the threads!
⭐⭐/r/pixelart
The pixel art subreddit is pretty active! I've also heard some of my friends found work through posting here, so it's worth a try if you're looking.
However, it is still Reddit- so if you're sensitive to rude people, or criticism you didn't ask for, you may want to avoid this one. Lol
🔸 Where To Find Work
You need money? I got you! As someone who mostly gets scouted on social media, I can share a few tips with you:
Put your email / portfolio in your bio
Recruiters don't have all that much time to find artists, make it as easy as possible for someone to find your important information!
Clean up your profile
If your profile feed is all full of memes, most people will just tab out rather than sift through. Doesn't apply as much to Tumblr if you have an art tag people can look at.
Post regularly, and repost
Activity beats everything in the social media game. It's like rolling the dice, and the more you post the more chances you have. You have to have no shame, it's all business baby
Outside of just posting regularly and hoping people reach out to you, it can be hard to know where to look. Here are a few places you can sign up to and post around on.
/r/INAT
INAT (I Need A Team) is a subreddit for finding a team to work with. You can post your portfolio here, or browse for people who need artists.
/r/GameDevClassifieds
Same as above, but specifically for game-related projects.
Remote Game Jobs / Work With Indies
Like Indeed but for game jobs. Browse them often, or get email notifications.
VGen
VGen is a website specifically for commissions. You need a code from another verified artist before you can upgrade your account and sell, so ask around on social media or ask your friends.
Once your account is upgraded, you can make a 'menu' of services people can purchase, and they send you an offer which you are able to accept, decline, or counter.
The evil websites of doom: Fiverr and Upwork
I don't recommend them!! They take a big cut of your profit, and the sites are teeming with NFT and AI people hoping to make a quick buck. The site is also extremely oversaturated and competitive, resulting in a race to the bottom (the cheapest, the fastest, doing the most for the least).
Imagine the kind of clients who go to these websites, looking for the cheapest option. But if you're really desperate...
🔸 Community
I do really recommend getting involved in a community. Finding like-minded friends can help you stay motivated to keep drawing. One day, those friends you met when you were just starting out may become your peers in the industry. Making friends is a game changer!
Discord servers
Nowadays, the forums of old are mostly abandoned, and people split off into many different servers. Cafe Dot, Pixel Art Discord (PAD), and if you can stomach scrolling past all the AI slop, you can browse Discord servers here.
Twitch Streams
Twitch has kind of a bad reputation for being home to some of the more edgy gamers online, but the pixel art community is extremely welcoming and inclusive. Some of the people I met on Twitch are my friends to this day, and we've even worked together on different projects!
Browse pixel art streams here, or follow some I recommend: NickWoz, JDZombi, CupOhJoe, GrayLure, LumpyTouch, FrankiePixelShow, MortMort, Sodor, NateyCakes, NyuraKim, ShinySeabass, I could go on for ever really... There are a lot of good eggs on Pixel Art Twitch.
🔸 Other Helpful Websites
Palettes
Lospec has a huge collection of user-made palettes, for any artist who has trouble choosing their colours, or just wants to try something fun.
Rejected Palettes is full of palettes that didn't quite make it onto Lospec, ran by people who believe there are no bad colours.
The Spriters Resource
TSR is an incredible website where users can upload spritesheets and tilesets from games. You can browse for your favourite childhood game, and see how they made it! This website has helped me so much in understanding how game assets come together in a scene.
VGMaps
Similar to the above, except there are entire maps laid out how they would be played. This is incredible if you have to do level design, or for mocking up a scene for fun.
Game UI Database
Not pixel-art specific, but UI is a very challenging part of graphics, so this site can be a game-changer for finding good references!
Retronator
A digital newspaper for pixel-art lovers! New game releases, tutorials, and artworks!
Itch.io
A website where people can upload, games, assets, tools... An amazing hub for game devs and game fans alike.
A few of my favourite tools: Tiled, PICO-8, Pixel Composer, Juice FX, Magic Pencil for Aseprite
🔸 The End?
This is just part 1 for now, so please drop me a follow to see any more guides I release in the future. I plan on doing some writeups on how I choose colours, how to practise, and more!
I'm not an expert by any means, but everything I did to get to where I am is outlined in this guide. Pixel art is my passion, my job and my hobby! I want pixel art to be recognized everywhere as an art-form, a medium of its own outside of game-art or computer graphics!
This guide took me a long time, and took a lot of research and experience. Consider following me or supporting me if you are feeling generous.
And good luck to all the fledgling pixel artists, I hope you'll continue and have fun. I hope my guide helped you, and don't hesitate to send me an ask if you have any questions! 💕
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Now these are just my thoughts but Em was definitely going through a midlife crisis when he wrote this album idk like just walk on water in itself as a preface encapsulates that he was going through a period of severe self doubt- I don't really enjoy it as a song but it's really significant just to understand the headspace he was in at the time of putting this album out. He already said he was exhausted with having to come up with more things to rhyme on Guts Over Fear which frankly I like better as a song, but this just shows he's still going through it and his insecurities have only gotten worse.
Like obviously the online criticism was getting to him to the point that he was seriously questioning his place in the game and whether or not he was washed up like everyone said (personally I think em being sort of socially isolated may have led to this, like if he stepped out more he'd realize irl people still really respect him and that social media is just a echo chamber of hate and half-baked opinions but whatever.) He used to say there's no way he'd be rapping in his 40s, but also that he'd only quit if he stopped selling, or if he died. Now he's in a predicament where, well he hasn't stopped selling and he hasn't died (like i guess he probably thought he would have by now) so he's still rapping so he's really unsure of what to do with himself.
Funnily enough the rest of the album just end ups providing evidence of his insecure state of mind rather than refuting it because thematically he rehashes a lot of his old concepts probably because of all the rave about "old em" but it ends up coming off as stale. Not because he's old now but because he's done it so well the first time around. Again I think it's just a product of him listening to too much criticism and his pen is being affected by his need to meet these expectations people have of him. The album really comes off of like him trying to juggle different aspects of his own music and coming off as kind of a clown. The concept of revival imo is just him looking back too hard at everything he's done in the past and been through.
lyrically he explores themes that em was probably concerned about at the time A) relationship issues he was having B) Politics C)the rap game. I think you can only really see merit in his thoughts here if you know and are invested in his personal story like lines like:
You were the beat I loved with a writer's block
The line that's hot, that I forgot
We laughed a little, cried a lot
and
You're my lightning rod when my sky gets dark
I'm your shiny rocks in that tiny box
Really don't hit the same if you don't know all the shit these people have been through and tbh even he says sorry i don't think its an apology song. It's just em's musings about his relationship with a very important person in his life. [ the same can be said for headlights tbh people think that song means he's all good now with his mom while I see it more like him closing a plot thread of his life in his lyrics, hence why he keeps bringing up his childhood issues in subsequent songs ]
I don't care about a lot of the other songs on this album that explore toxic relationships or American politics or the rap game. Tbh on this album when em says he's better than everyone in the game, I have a hard time accepting that he believes that himself lol my man was going throughhh itttt [ While in kamikaze it does sound like he Believes] . And as for the political content- I'm not American and I dont come to Em for his rational arguments about world issues but if he thinks its important he uses his massive platform to rally for a positive societal change I can respect that, regardless to me never listening to those songs.
In the later part of this album 'In Your Head' Em I think tries to explore more about WHY exactly he feels so uncomfortable in his own skin right now and can't quiet find his footing, and its because of the guilt he feels towards his children for creating Shady and not thinking about how that would affect his own and their lives. Castle/Arose have been talked about a lot already but it carries home this theme of him musing about his life's events and his regrets surrounding them- wanting to go back do things over, classic mid life crisis stuff. People say these songs shouldn't have been at the end but like where else would they even be?
All in all I do understand why this album got the reaction that it got and why it lead to kamikaze lol I think whether you like it or not this is just em being Real(tm) he had it up to here with criticism was having a hell of a time dealing with it and thus just explodes on everyone big and small, taking names and talking SHIT on kamikaze lmao. People keep saying that album aged badly but I only heard it recently and I think it's great that he got whatever he needed to say off his chest, it just makes him more interesting as an artist.
As for rankings or whatever, the album is what it is. can you rate art? Do i listen to it though? No, but I think its a really important album and will be talked about for a long time as it is regardless if peoples opinions on it change or not.
Rare firsthand accounts by Israeli whistleblowers cast light on the horrific conditions in the Sde Teiman torture camp in Naqab Desert. Palestinians are stripped down, blindfolded, forced in diapers, and forbidden from speaking. They are subjected to beatings and mental degradation regularly. So much depravity that has gone unseen. Doctors performing procedures outside of their expertise, amputations due to zip-typing of abductees’ wrists, having large dogs unleashed on them at night. Being fed food through straws. I can’t believe it. I am truly in shock. And this is just one whistleblower accounting of this. Who knows what else is happening beyond our knowledge
one last thing is that it is very easy to love animals, because they cannot speak back to you. the global south knows this, we know that pets matter more to usamericans than human lives, i remember that a flight was chartered for dogs while afghanis waited desperately as the taliban bore down, palestinians joke that animal charities in gaza are more popular than their pleas are, tribal communities in india are subject to the establishment of no go sanctuaries that destroy their access to subsistence to protect endangered animals. behind the mask of animal liberation sometimes hides the hatred of liberation.
I condemn Hamas to the same degree, not an inch more or less, as I condemn the IRA. Are there optics good? Not incredibly, are they always right? Absolutely not. But their existence is one of the only things stopping stopping their home nations from being entirely colonised, ripped of its culture and peoples.
If you don't want to get shot by a person, don't break into their kitchen, start saying its yours, and try to kick them out of it. Up the Ra, Up Hamas, Free Ireland and Free Palestine. We will never be free until colonisers and settlers are eating the dirt they have no claim to.
It's always okay to use violence against an oppressive and persecutory state, especially one that is actively trying to wipe you out. No sympathy for colonising pigs. Tiocfaidh an lá Phalaistín.
Don't invoke Anne Franks name to defend a state that claimed Hitler never even wanted to exterminate the jews, just get rid of them, and that it was the Muslims that convinced him, you fucking islamophobic asshole.
why should palestinians have to leave behind their land because israel wont stop killing them. why should anyone have to leave behind their life and memories and sentimental value just because an aggressor is left unchallenged. please think this sentiment through and delete it from your thoughts. instead of blaming an oppressed people for living in a hostile land, ask who is making that land hostile to live in.
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people in the global south: hey isnt it so fucked up how america basically dictates world geopolitics and can directly fund and endorse our murder and displacement no matter who is in charge and how the system fundamentally prevents people from changing that and that americans who feign allyship make no effort to change that?
some annoying fucking white person with hufflepuff in their bio: so you're telling me you want me to vote for trump right. is that what you want. you want me to vote for the orange man. you're a russian bot aren't you
I'm reading about how Israel, in the immediate aftermath of the 1948 Nakba, deliberately replaced olive trees and other indigenous flora with European plants. This ecological disaster, which is now proudly hailed under the banner of 'making the desert bloom,' was done to 'de-Arabize' the landscape, and to cover up - often with fast-growing European pine trees -the ruins of Palestinian villages that were destroyed by Zionists forces.
And I just need everyone to read this passage from Pappé, because the symbolism of what happened to those European pine trees in the desert speaks for itself:
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappé (2006, p. 227-228.)
A tweet by Hamza Ahmed || 🇵🇸 @.Hamzahjazar, from October 13. It says, "How bad it is!! Trying to convince the world that you are dying." This tweet has been quoted by Mohammed El-Kurd @.m7mdkurd two hours ago, with the words, "Hamza was killed by an Israeli airstrike."
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