For this project, I wanted something that would look unique and portray the aesthetic I enjoy. I decided to make a fantasy pixel art animation in a horror genre. It is a short animation however it encapsulates the style I like. I decided to make the animation in a free online program called https://www.pixilart.com/ draw instead of the industry standard as it fit the style I was using. Of course, there was a learning curve but despite this the program is very intuitive.

My idea generation process has multiple steps. I start by creating a mind map of the brief and what I want to create. After this, I start taking those ideas and expanding them with word association. Finally, I start creating thumbnails for my ideas before looking back at the brief to make sure they comply. After this I make one page treatment and then a full treatment to plan out my production.

To make sure my production was as effective as possible, I looked into Saultoons’ video
on “The Ultimate Pixel Art Tutorial,” which taught me a new technique when
designing characters. First start with a basic silhouette and then alter it to make it more
interesting before adding in the details. This is important as pixel art is oversimplified as
detail can be your biggest enemy so when designing your character, you need to make
sure their silhouette is unique, and their details are not overcomplicated.

Timing the final piece was increasingly difficult so next time I would create the sprite and then import them into Adobe Animate. The program was great at sprite creation however, when it came to animating my work, the program was not the best, so I ended up using Adobe After Effects for compositing.