Megamaniac

REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S SECOND FILM NOT ONLY CONSISTED OF A CAST WITH FOUR CENTRAL FEMALE CHARACTERS BUT INCLUDED AN ENTIRE TOWN OF DIVERSE CITIZENS OF VARYING RACE, GENDER, AND AGE. LIKE A NORMAL TOWN HAS.

REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S THIRD FILM FEATURED SAME SEX COUPLES IN THEIR TEASER TRAILER

REMINDER THAT THIS IS ALL STOP-MOTION SO EVERY CHARACTER WAS DESIGNED, MODELED, SCULPTED, RIGGED, AND EVEN HAD TINY CLOTHES SEWED FOR THEM.

also reminder that they make chump change compared to disney who whines and cries that in all their years of experience they can’t handle the prospect of animating a girl with a face different than the rest and that it’s “too hard” because only females can express such a wide range of emotions that it makes them difficult to animate

It really was that big!! I went to a Laika exhibit in 2018 and this took up almost an entire room alone!

Another room was mostly dedicated to the Coraline garden, for reference, the pumpkin eyeballs were about the size of a basketball each

There was so much crazy detail it was mind blowing!

God I wish I took more pictures and had a better camera back then cause it was the COOLEST EXHIBIT EVER!

These limits no longer exist, so you are no longer beholden to any of them. Despite what you might hear in certain pixel art spaces, there aren’t really any rules anymore, because there’s no technical limitations forcing you to work a specific way. You can make your pixel art have as many colours as you want, be whatever size you like, and have as many frames as you want it to.

However! the smaller you make a sprite, the harder things will become to read unless you shrink down the number of colours in equal measure.

In a photo you might have. i dunno. 1,000,000 pixels in it or something like that. Thats like a really small photo but that’s still so many pixels that you don’t really notice any of them individually. They all blend together into one big mass to tell you what you’re looking at in groups of hundreds!

On the other hand, in a 16x16 sprite you’ll only have 256 of them. Every single individual pixel can have something to say!

But if every pixel is trying to say something at once, it muddies the sprite and makes it hard to read. However, if a group of pixels are all the same colour, they’re all saying the same thing, and it becomes a lot easier to understand what you’re looking at.

like, for example, take a look at this 16x16 crop of a random photo.

does that look like a whole lot of nothing? yeah . theres 256 pixels, and theres 256 colours. the pixels aren’t really working together to tell you anything, so instead it just becomes one big vague mass. if i reduce the colour count to just 6 colours and increase the contrast, though,

it starts to look less like visual noise, and more like water at sunset!

The contrast is important - part of why you want to keep your colour count low is to make groups of pixels distinct from each other.

But, how exactly do you keep your colour count low, anyway?

a colour ramp refers to the gradient of colours in your palette that are used to shade one particular colour, such as tempests hair or her skin

instinctively you’re probably going to want to make individual gradients of colour for each of these things.

however, if you connect these ramps together, you can greatly reduce the number of colours you’re using in your piece. This also helps create a cohesive palette!

when it comes to connecting ramps, value matters much more than individual hues. you want to have a good range of values to have a readable sprite!

I think actually a really good example of value mattering more than hue in sprites, is this guide to anti aliasing by pixeljoint user ptoing

also just generally good advice, but take a look at this bit in particular

despite the wildly varying hues, they work together just fine. by focusing on the value when you combine your ramps, you can create some really interesting colour palettes!

anyway. now for some vaguer notes on how i do lighting

So recently I came across a fellow artist who was struggling to find a free art program, and considering dropping the large amount of money for a Photoshop license. I know not everyone can afford such an expensive program, so I’ve compiled a list of programs with no cost to download and use.

Keep in mind all computers are different, so not all will work for everyone. Also, I’ve only ever used Windows, so for the most part, I’m not sure if everything will work for Mac. if in doubt check the website linked.

Photoshop CS2 - (Windows, not sure about Mac.)

FireAlpaca - (Windows and Mac)

Sketchbook Copic Edition - (Windows and Mac)

GIMP - (Windows) (Mac)

Paint tool SAI [cracked]  - (Windows) (Mac)

Paint tool SAI 2 beta - (tumblr post on said program)

iPaint - (Mac)

Paintbrush - (Mac)

Pencil - (Windows, Mac)

Paint.NET - (Windows)

Seashore [still in development, ver 0.5] - (Mac)

ChocoFlop - (Mac)

Inkscape - (Mac and Windows)

ArtRage [Demo] - (Mac and Windows)

OpenCanvas 1.1[must pay for 2.0] - (Windows, not sure about Mac.)

MyPaint - (Windows)

Krita - (Windows)

Vectorian [Supports Animation] - (Windows)

Pixia[Japanese, some English versions] - (Windows)

Asperite - (Windows)

Chasys Draw IES - (Windows)

SmoothDraw - (Windows)

TwistedBrush Open Studio - (Windows)

BOUNS - CTRL+Paint [Great for teaching all kinds of stuff, like how to use digital programs.]

Wings 3D (Windows, Linux, Mac)

OpenSCAD (Windows,Linux, Mac)

Daz Studio & Hexagon (Windows, Mac) but you have to register to get those

AutoDesk 123D (Windows) - original site doesn’t offer Autodesk anymore but you can get it here.

Sculptris  (Windows. Mac)

Blender (Windows, Mac, Linux)

LibreCAD (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Not 3D but useful as hell!

Creative Suit 2 - you can download them here for both Mac and Windows.

“ Grow old with me

Let us share what we see

And oh the best it could be

Just you and I

And our hands they might age

And our bodies will change

But we'll still be the same

As we are “