Definition of Pixel Art

[VAdaPEGA]

(unsure if this is the right place to post this, move it if necessary)

This has been going through my head non-stop since I keep running into issues with where ti draw the line at defining what Pixel Art is and what isn't. Wikipedia isn't helpful and even constradicts itself with the examples it gives.
Not to mention how it's meant to be spelt... is it Pixelart?... Pixel Art?... Pixel-Art? it's always different wherever you look...

One big gripe I have with most defitions of it is how it prioritizes placing pixels one by one carefully and maticulously...

Here are some examples that edge between normal Digital Art and Pixel Art
(these are going to be my stuff since it revolves around my experience with the reaction from others)

https://www.tumblr.com/vadapega/7334898 ... urce=share
This piece is what started my doubts about where the line should be drawn, it was a friendly debate between me and BlueNightComedies (amazing plural artist, go check them out) where they brought up Cave Story's ending sequence. Analising the art myself, I figured it was done with a pixel brush similar to the one in MSPaint, so I attempted to replicate it. The Time-lapse shows how I avoided zooming in and cleaning up on the pixel level since, while it doesn't apply to all the pieces from Cave Story's ending, some do show rough unclean lines. Admitedly I rushed it a bit to make a point and it doesn't have the same level of clean lines as Cave Story's, but my point was more in the execution rather than the final piece.
Wether or not either are considered Pixel Art is still up to interpretation (I think it's not, but that's purely subjective)

https://chitter.xyz/@VAdaPEGA/111674504469883491
In contrast, this one was polished up with care, having a visible colour palette at the bottom right to further enphasize the limited number of shades used, smaller details added where need fit, definitely something you could see on a retro title screen. Despite this, with how it was printed on the con book this was submited for, it was undistinguishable from other artpieces with how small it was. To the naked eye this was just like any other piece of Digital Art.

2024-05-29_Traditional.png (10.92 KiB) Viewed 7431 times

https://chitter.xyz/@VAdaPEGA/112526527711378479
This montage shows the entire process behind my usual methods of doing pixelart when checker-style dithering is used and, outside of some anti-aliasing here and there as well as some finishing touches, placing individual pixels is not the entire focus.
With that said, dithering seems to be an easy way to convey to the viewer that this is, without a doubt, pixelart... BUT-

https://chitter.xyz/@VAdaPEGA/111986818423834037
Every time I do one of these pieces where I use MSPaint's Spray tool to transition between light levels, shades or fur colour, I get one or two people going "Cool Pixel Art"... Hell, even when flat coloured, just the fact that it's a 1280x720px piece done with a pixel brush means that it's Pixel Art to most casuals these days.
Of course, if you were to make a piece of art that is 4k in resolution but still use a Pixel brush, nobody would define it as Pixel Art (although I've had one person argue it is)

https://itaku.ee/images/849420
This one's at a ridiculous high res and, while the cat dragon could be argued to be Digital Art with one shade being a dither pattern, the rest of the cast absolutely are without a doubt Pixel Art, the problem lies with some of the Cat Dragon's details being carefully adjusted to look as best as it can.

https://chitter.xyz/@VAdaPEGA/112709793866029605
You'd think a piece like this would, without a doubt be considered Pixel Art by most, but I've had a couple people ask me something along the lines of "That's Pixel Art, right?". So despite a visible palette, low resolution and rough edges, it wasn't immediately obvious that it was.

---

One idea someone did bring up during my search is that Pixel Art is only Pixel Art when there's a specific density in the craft, meaning there needs to be enough variation on small areas of large pieces for it to be considered Pixel Art, which does get closer but would absolutely disqualify a lot of pieces that would otherwise be considered Pixel Art.

Another popular idea is "if it fits on a retro game console, then it's Pixel Art" which is absolutely untrue, most have fit PNGs into those consoles even way before Home Brewers came in, and it's blatantly obvious when it's just some converted piece of Art (see : Title Screen of Kirby Super Star for SNES, the game selection in Super Mario All-Stars SNES, any cutscene in the Toy Story game or heck, the majority of sports games during that era)

Are pre-rendered sprites in games considered Pixel Art or something inbetween?

And don't even bring up bits, those are unclear and unhelpful even during the era.

What are some examples you can't quite describe as one or the other?

[Jess]

hot take that I may be alone in but I think when you construct the image pixel by pixel (even if it's a draw-over) then it's pixel art. This doesn't include hi-res art that has been downscaled though and you're just removing the weird artifacts from that. In that case, the downscaling made the pixels. You gotta make the pixels yourself. Size and density does not matter

[VAdaPEGA]

hot take that I may be alone in but I think when you construct the image pixel by pixel (even if it's a draw-over) then it's pixel art. This doesn't include hi-res art that has been downscaled though and you're just removing the weird artifacts from that. In that case, the downscaling made the pixels. You gotta make the pixels yourself. Size and density does not matter

That would mean none of the above is pixelart, or a majority of my works including what goes on in Gatoslip

Edit : Also excluded from being Pixelart : Aladdin on the Genesis (main character sprites)

[Jess]

yea that's why I said like, if it's a drawover. If you do a sketch and then draw pixels over that sketch, it's pixel art

[NovaSquirrel]

I'm definitely not placing pixels carefully one by one with most of my recent art that has higher (but still small) resolutions; I've just been doing regular line strokes with my trackball and then cleaning them up by modifying individual pixels where necessary (and Aseprite's "pixel perfect" mode does most of the cleanup for me in the first place.) I do build some important details like eyes carefully but for the most part it's just strokes and then cleanup.

I guess one distinguishing thing is that I'm using 1 pixel wide lines, but if that's really it then "Preeny Has to Repeat 6th Grade" would be a pixel art comic, which feels weird to say. Maybe low resolution and thin lines is its own space where things are kind of blurry.

[Jess]

oh yea like, the big pixellated brush is still pixel art. If that brush has any kind of antialiasing on it though like most brushes in most art programs, forget it that's not pixel art anymore

[NovaSquirrel]

I dunno it's kind of weird to consider this pixel art just because there's no antialiasing? (art by Autumn/luvporbol) But maybe it makes sense to just, specifically say low-resolution pixel art if that's what's being talked about.

[Jess]

hmmmmmm that might be too hi-res to be pixel art idk, it's hard to say!!!

[VAdaPEGA]

It's lower res compared to the cat dragon picture, even without upscaling that one.

That does bring me to something else though : maps

(note to self, make less boring maps to look at)

This is where the Pixel density idea does apply to some extent, while it is at a high resolution, it's comprised of smaller chunks of Pixel Art, though typically there tends to be repeating patterns.

[Jess]

yea like, I think that's still pixel art. I feel like tiles that are constructing an image don't fall into the discussion? Otherwise shield cat's large stages of several thousand px would be like, super not pixel art haha