(the next one will be more organized, sorry guys)

I’ll be hosting another private chat channel today! I’ll be taking pixel art requests (mostly small-ish ones) and maybe talking a bit about my visual novel. (need some help with audio curation, so there will be some jamming to NG Radio)

Whether you have a request or not, feel free to stick around and chat! You can talk about your own projects, take some requests of your own, or just goof around (it’s all up to you).

There’ll be times where I’m not as active on the chat. If I’m not responsive, feel free to @ me so I can respond to you!

See you soon maybe? It'd be great to have you!

https://chat.newgrounds.com/c/r1D_wvcY 

Request Guidelines

• As eloquently stated in the ‘Chat Rules’, “Don’t be a dick”. (Please read them if you haven’t already)
• Don’t be afraid to be specific with details! I want to be able to make the best work that I can for you. The more information you provide, the more likely the resulting image will look like what you want.
• That being said… Please provide references if you can! It’ll save me some time (and possibly embarrassment).
• Please note that I have the right to reject any requests due to subject matter, time restraints, or any other reason. I apologize if I don’t get to your request, but I hope that it's understood that my limitations aren't anything personal. :’)
• All finished requests will be shared via newspost or my twitter page (check out the ones from last round here)

Thanks as always for all of your support!

Thanks to everyone that came out to the request chat! I doofed a bit and forgot to write down usernames (whoops) but it was really great meeting some of you! It was nice to engage with the community on here, instead of just shamefully lurking around, something I need to get way better about. :')

Huge shoutout to @TomFulp and @StuffedWombat for boosting the chat on Twitter! I really appreciate the support!

Apologies if your request didn't make the cut. However, good news if your request was Stranger Things-related, there'll be a larger submission once I'm finished with it.

For people that missed the party, request chats will become a recurring thing once I get more organized. I've typed up a couple of guidelines for next time, so look forward to it! I'm really hoping that it becomes a monthly thing.

If anyone's interested in participating in the next request chat as an artist, feel free to PM me and we can try to coordinate our schedules!

In other news, I'm excited to announce that I'm working on a visual novel to submit to the portal!

         (it's kinda small)

Visual novels are a medium of storytelling that resonate really well with me, so exploring that kind of narrative has been really interesting. There's still some stuff I need to work out, but hopefully I'll be able to share it with you very soon!

I thought this would be fun to do. I'll be hovering around a private chat channel for a bit to take pixel art requests! I'll mostly be taking icon requests (working in 60x60 is always a fun exercise) but I'm open to other suggestions. (please note that I reserve the right to reject any requests)

If I'm unresponsive, feel free to @ me so I can look at it later. If ng chat isn't your flavour, don't be afraid to pm me! I'll do my best to respond. 

Here's the link to the chat room, https://chat.newgrounds.com/c/BJ2U9sDu, maybe I'll see you! 

I'll be posting all of the finished requests in a news post or on my art thread later. Have a good one!

*****UPDATE 7/29/16 *******

Thanks to everyone that came out to chat! I'll be working on requests and I'll post a compilation of them when I'm finished. I really appreciate all of your support.

(I forgot to jot down usernames, so if you participated in chat and requested something, don't be afraid to pm me so I can tag you in the compilation post. sorry for the inconvenience!)

Some people have been asking me about my process for pixel art, so I thought it'd be neat to compile a list of references. There are some great guides and tutorials by super talented artists that I highly recommend if you're planning on getting into pixel art! 

Overall Guides

• Derek Yu's "Pixel Art Tutorial" - Covers a lot of the basics and includes a step-by-step process along with some detailed visuals.
• Better in 2d's "Things to Avoid" - Provides examples of common mistakes in pixel art. Includes a wide variety of informative visuals, ranging from simple to complex.
• Endesga's Pixel Art Tutorial - A large compilation of helpful information, ranging from tools, size, palettes, even character design!

Outline Tutorials

• Sam Keddy's "Pixel Art Outlines Tutorial" (also Part 2) - Goes into basics about outlining in pixel art, when to use it and how it works visually. Part 2 goes into utilizing colour in your outlines to maintain contrast.

Colour References

• Better in 2d's "Creating a Colour Palette" - Covers basic vocabulary and colour theory. Goes into the various ways you can create contrast and create cohesive colour ramps. Doesn't just provide one way of providing contrast via hue, saturation, etc. 
• Open Game Art's "Colour Palettes"- This is chapter 5 of a larger compilation of pixel references (feel free to check them out). This guide isn't as accessible as the other ones, it doesn't read as nicely, or provide as many visuals, it does however, go into a specific approach to developing colour palettes via hexadecimal code. More formulaic in terms of creating a color palette
• Pixel Joint thread- This is less of a tutorial, and more of a reference. The users on this thread provide a basic explanation of colour theory. Also references other pixel artists and dissects their approach to colour.

Animation

• Paul Robertson and Jonathan "Persona-sama" Kim's Tips for animating 2D Games - General advice for animating sprites for games, great things to keep in mind for creating distincitve animations.

Other

• Onimille's Five Step Tutorial archive- A collection of tutorials that explore all kinds of different textures and objects.
• Liberated Pixel Cup styleguide- Great guide that covers top-down styles. Goes over perspective in games and how to utilize colour palettes.
• So You Want to be a Pixel Artist:- Covers map-making, tiling, etc.! Amazing reference for if you want to make games! 

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I'll be updating this by request or if I find any links that I think will be useful. If anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out to me! I hope that this is helpful for anyone that needs it.

Extremely sorry for dropping off the radar for a couple of months, things have just gotten really weird. I'm not really great at managing an online presence (I'm awful with social media), so it was really easy to get behind. I'm fine, just things are really messy right now. I'll be trying to check in more often and upload stuff from time to time! I'll be posting a lot of short doodles on twitter though if you're interested :') 

gonna be away from things for a while, sorry if I don't respond to stuff.

**edit** I realized this was vague and ominous, sorry about that, I just have limited access to my computer because of time constraints and technical difficulties. I have some projects outside of NG that I want to focus on for now. Thanks for your support

I'll delete this later huah huah, but I'd like some input! I kind of want to make an art thread on the Supporter-Party forum, where I take suggestions and requests from other users. I was thinking about the AMA's on the forum and how they incentivize supporter-ship. Ideally, the art thread would operate a similar way.

I think it'd be a fun way to contribute to the community and interact with other users, unfortunately, I don't know if it's a good idea or if anyone would even be interested :') . Any input is appreciated! Thanks for taking the time to read this.

It’s kind of a landmark day for me, hahaha. Along with it being my first holiday on Newgrounds, my first week of exams are officially over, and I finished my collab with the incredible Template88!!! She was communicative, straightforward, and patient enough to work through my personal hiccups huh huah. Huge thanks to her for making my first major collab an amazing experience! I’m really excited to share our project with all of you. It’s an interactive pixel art inspired by a couple of fighting games. SUPER NEWGROUNDS HYPER FIGHTER II: TURBO EDITION (the art collab) is available here! http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/674369

All of the individual sprites and mini-portraits are available on my art thread! Along with that, I put up a general dump of assets I thought would be fun to feature. There are some things that I had fun making, but either didn’t work stylistically or just flat out didn’t make sense, haha. If you’re interested in my process, feel free to check it out! There’s some fun and kooky stuff in there.  http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1405466/2

It was one of my major goals to work with other artists on Newgrounds. I’m just so thankful that I was given the opportunity to do so. I honestly feel like I’ve grown a lot since I’ve started posting here. I’ve been a lot more engaged in the community and I’ve been getting better about documenting my work. I’ve still got a long way to go, but overall, I’m pretty pleased with my progress, haha. The users on this site been so incredibly supportive and helpful. Thanks to everyone that’s gone out of their way to reach out to me. I can’t wait until I’m at a point where I can contribute a lot to this site as well.

Have a great Pico Day, everyone!

Just a quick update: I've run into some health problems lately, so if I'm bad with responses and things, uh, that's why. It's nothing too serious! It's just been enough to conk me out for a couple of weeks+, but with antibiotics and bed rest, I should recover! 

I'm still working on a couple of projects, my schedule is a bit tight, but I should be more available for requests and trades after Pico Day! Coincidentally, that's also around the time my school's exams are, haha. It'll be a good time.

In other general news: Brood V is coming (for some of you on the east coast). I know every other year the media makes a big whoop whop about cicada plagues and all of that, but can you blame them? They are super neat! Sleeping underground for years only to endlessly scream when emerged? that's me that's the dream. For those of you who don't know, the thirteen-year and seventeen-year cicadas have the genus name, magicicada! which is very fitting because they are magic and no one can tell me otherwise.

They should be emerging sometime in May! Maybe even earlier if the weather is warmer. Hmm? Happy Brood V, everyone!

I hope this finds everyone well! I've definitely been more productive lately. I've got a couple of projects in the works right now and I can't wait to share them with you once they're finished. For now though, accept this tank man? (part of a bigger project to come)

Special thanks to everyone who has reached out to me! I've interacted with some great people in a creatively productive way (which is incredibly exciting). I'm definitely getting better at reaching out to people on here, so that's pretty neat.

Due to the amount of projects on my plate, art trades are closed for now. However, I should be available for any requests after Pico Day!

(Also, if anyone wouldn't mind if I sent them WIP shots and being my sounding board, please PM me. I'd really appreciate your input huah huah).

Thanks for taking the time to read this!