I recently wrote a pretty long piece on the Lospec Discord server about how I got into pixel art. I thought it was pretty nice so I made a more eloborate writing on here.

This post is seperated into sections, where I answered specific questions that contributes to the main one.

Why art?

I got sick of writing and programming so I chose art as my next creative avenue.

When did you discovered pixel art?

I started discovered pixel art when I found Dotpict and tried it out. The memories with it are great, and although all of my art back then look flatter than anyone's chest, I keep going and created a plethora of works. Then I abandoned pixel art for quite some time (probably due to boredom).

Now, with the sudden rediscovery of Dotpict, my passion got revitalized, and this time I started putting in more effort into making and publishing pixel art.

Why did you choose pixel art?

I chose pixel art for several reasons:

1. Studying how someone creates pixel/low-spec art is much easier than with other digital or traditional art, since it's easy to notice and to apply.
2. With pixel art you can do a lot with a little, and you can still create decent-looking pixel art without being that good at art in general (like me).
3. Gamedev. I had a lot of ins and outs with it before and although none of them come into fruition, it makes me even more interested into pixel art
4. Because most of people who do pixel arts are also game developers (or at least programmers to an extent), so I feel a sense of belonging being in the community.

How did you learn pixel art?

I first started reading posts on forums, then watching Youtube videos about animation and the basics.

I also see other people's art and try to notice how they achieve a certain effect, and also apply that to my work if possible.

How did you post your work?

With all of the knowledge I have learned about distributing my work with writing, I chose a few select places to post my work, including Reddit (r/pixelart) and Discord (Lospec Discord Server and Aseprite's) for getting my work some attention, and Mastodon and Dotpict for long-term storage and portfolio.

When I first started posting art, I got kind of overwhelmed by the amount of options I have (Tumblr, ArtStation, NG, all other art platforms), but now I realized most pixel artists post on Twitter/Mastodon anyways, so that's why I sticked to those.

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Now, pixelling is something I do in my free time when I feel like I need to throw some stress out.

And that's how I become a pixel artist, quit it, and then come back to it again.