Intro to 2D Pixel Animation

Pixel art has become the go to for many game creators for a variety of reasons including nostalgia and a perception of ease of creation. Low resolution pixel art often comes with a bad rap of it being something only lazy and metoo artists use, especially in a more and more cluttered marketplace. While the art of creating great still pixel characters is in itself tough to master, creating lively animation can be tricky, but will also set your artwork apart from the rest, giving you an immediate edge graphically.In this class, Shawn Allen (Nuchallenger LLC) will cover some some key tips, both general animation and pixel art specific, to quickly and inexpensively create animation that injects life into game pixel characters.

Topics include:

• The importance of a clean starting sprite
• getting your art ready to animate
• setting up workflow
• Basic animation principles all animators should know
• using references
• walk/run cycle
• squash and stretch
• anticipation/follow through
• and more
• pixel art specific animation tips to
• optimize your art
• keep work load down
• add personality
• and more

With these basic tips, game creators will be one step ahead of just moving their characters and will instead have great animated characters to fill their game world.