Tutorial Part 1 : Making A Simple Pixel Art Ship

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Greetings and welcome to my very first tutorial – Making A Simple Pixel Art Ship. Hope this tutorial will help kickstart your very first pixel art sprite. I do plan to expand these tutorials in the near future so do check back often. You can also check out my sprite packs over at Itch.io or GameDevMarket.

Additional Info

1. Project files for this tutorial are available on my Itch.io page.

2. The software I use in this tutorial is called Aseprite (not sponsored). It’s been my go to software to make pixel arts for almost 3 years. It’s available on Windows, Mac and Linux. If you are on iOS, I recommend using Pixaki. (not sponsored). I used Pixaki a lot before moving to Aseprite after I bought a drawing tablet for my PC.

3. The canvas size is 32 by 32 pixels.

4. You can easily select the lighter or darker version of your base color by clicking either the foreground or background, selecting HSV (2nd tab) and drag the V slider (3rd one). Please refer to the two pictures below.

Pixel Enemies for SHMUP

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After some delays and mishaps (my desktop power supply unit died literally a day after I uploaded this pack), Pixel Enemies for SHMUP is now available on Itch.io and GameDevMarket. This pack allows me to get a bit more creative behind the designs like making some ships looked like mechanical bugs. Overall I had lots of fun making this asset pack.

Razer Tartarus V2 An Artist Review

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This blog post contains affiliate links, which helps to support this website at no extra cost to you. 

If there is one complain I have when using drawing tablets, it is the number of physical buttons available. I’m currently using a XP-Pen Artist 12 drawing tablet and it only has 6 buttons plus a small touch bar. Granted the Artist 12 is a great and affordable drawing tablet with a 1080p screen that be purchased at around $200 to $250. I managed to get mine during a sale for slightly less than $200 back in July of 2019. You can also check out the Pro version along with other tablets from XP-Pen.

As I continue to use the Artist 12 on a daily basis, being unable to use my keyboard in a comfortable manner is starting to affect my productivity. You see, I have a relatively small desk and wasn’t able to fit the keyboard next to my drawing tablet without to shift things around constantly.

Fast forward a couple of months later, my friends gave me a birthday present I would not have bought for myself, at least for the reason I had in mind. It was the Razer Tartarus V2, a one handed keyboard with 32 programmable keys and of course, RGB. The original intended use for such keyboard is for gaming but it turns out, this is a the perfect companion device to go with any drawing tablet.

The Razer Tartarus V2
The Razer Tartarus V2

Saves A Lot of Space

The Razer Tartarus V2 is small, about 1/3 the width of a full size keyboard. This allows me to have it sit comfortably next to the Artist 12 tablet.  Having both devices close to each other makes it less straining on my arms and wrist, at least in my opinion.

Programmable Keys

With 32 programmable keys, the Tartarus V2 allows me to set macros, which are sequences of keystrokes mouse actions, or menu actions. Like for an example, I’ve set the ‘Undo’ function to the single round button on the Tartarus V2.  With a single press, I am able to trigger the ‘Undo’ function instead of having to press the default Ctrl and Z keys. This one handed keyboard also has 3 profiles you can set. This allows you to have different key customization for each profile. Currently I only have 2; one for drawing and one for gaming.

Comfort

The Razer Tartarus V2 has a palm rest and an ergonomic design that makes it comfortable to use for long hours. My only small complain is that I have a bit of trouble reaching certain keys (mainly 01 and 05) located on the top left and top right. Blame it on my small hands.

Having used the Tartarus V2 for over 6 months, I can say for sure that I can no longer do any graphic work without this one handed keyboard on my side.

P.S There are plenty of other one handed keyboard brands out there besides the offerings from Razer. As long as they support programmable keys, you are good to go.

New Asset Release Pixel Sidescroller Background City

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Hi everyone. I’m happy to announce my that my new asset “Pixel Sidescroller Background City” is now available on Itch.io and GameDevMarket. This asset pack consists of 4 scenes: Daytime, Sunset, Evening and Abandoned. Each layer is separated, allowing you to customize the scene to fit your needs. This pack goes well with my other pack “Pixel Sidescroller Spaceships”, also available on Itch.io and GameDevMarket.

Pixel Sidescroller Spaceships v1.3 Update

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It’s been almost a year since this pack was last updated and I’m happy to announce that Pixel Sidescroller Spaceships has been updated to version 1.3. The first major change is that all 40 ships has been updated with better colors and shading. The original had a simple black outside which looked acceptable (to me) when I first published them back in 2018. As I continue to work on pixel art throughout 2019, I realized that using just simple black borders (especially to show the inner details) just doesn’t cut it. I might consider giving the same treatment to my other asset packs.

Other new things added are 5 enemies (which 2 of them are animated) and 2 projectile designs. For the next update I will most likely be adding more enemy sprites.

Stay tuned!

Animated Pixel Planes

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I realized I have yet to make a blog post about it but here it is. My latest pixel art asset called Animated Pixel Planes.

This pack (currently version 1.2) contains 5 ships with tilt and thrusters animation. Each ship also has another cooler, stronger looking form. Other sprites include icons, explosion animation, shield animation. Please check either Itch.io or GameDevMarket for the complete list of sprites in this asset pack. Thanks.