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[Anthony Flack]

You just disproved your own claim, and contradicted yourself.

Okay, assuming the "finest" pixel art is also the biggest, then let's adjust that up to a week. Depending on how big the biggest pixel art is.

Just a reminder, these are the statements I'm disagreeing with:

That's why I love pixelart, it's ultimate detailing.

The only time you'd get the level of attention to detail you get with pixel art in another medium is if you do pointillism, really

[godsavant]

It's a little too big - to replicate that exactly, within 24 hours, you'd need to plot around three pixels per second. But do you reckon I couldn't find a painting, drawing, etching or sculpture more detailed than that?

You could, but pixel art's beauty lies also in its precise, mathematical nature, unlike the sweeping brush strokes of real-life art mediums. Much like electronic music, it is valid in that it abides by technological constraints of placement and color choice, yet still manages to achieve creative style and brilliance.

And what does replication have to do with anything? Obviously, it is a simple matter to duplicate pixel patterns, but that doesn't change the fact that, even if for only a moment, there existed a genuine article created the original vision of the artist. Replicating a piece of pixel art has no more sway than making prints of famous paintings has on the merit of the original piece itself.

The only time you'd get the level of attention to detail you get with pixel art in another medium is if you do pointillism, really

Comparing fidelity is frivolous, as the marvel of the trade is to be able to create detail out of an inherently undetailed entity - the pixel.

[Anthony Flack]

I like pixel art! I think its low fidelity is part of its charm! The fact that it is totally accessible to anybody is also a good thing.

But the idea that pixel artists take greater care with the detailing of their work does not hold true for the work of any of the non-pixel artists that I know. That's all.

[BlueSweatshirt]

I like pixel art! I think its low fidelity is part of its charm! The fact that it is totally accessible to anybody is also a good thing.

But the idea that pixel artists take greater care with the detailing of their work does not hold true for the work of any of the non-pixel artists that I know. That's all.

I consider myself a general artist, as I pursue arts of all(most/many) mediums.

Pixel art is one of them, and I share an equal passion for it that I do with other visual art. Although yet I do in fact find I put much more care into my pixel art than others. One reason maybe being that you can undo any mistake in pixel art, and perfection is possibility, and of no simple excuse not to pursue.

[EDIT]
Oops, I partly misread your post. But I'll leave my statement as-is nonetheless.

[Atnas]

hOH MAN AWESOME DISCUSSION : D

When I paint, sure I pay attention to detail... When I pixel, detail is everything I'm doing. I'm working with the picture element... the pixel. In painting there simply isn't the availability of the same kind of attention to detail because it's an analog process. When you can tweak the numbers to your hearts content, all of the numbers and nothing but the numbers, I feel it's a lot more detail driven than say, drawing a pencil line. The human error is removed, and it is akin to having your brain directly hooked up to a machine and the art that comes through being a direct product of your knowlege and not skill. OR SOMETHING.

But that's my opinion, really, and any other opinion don't matter just as equally. I mean, discussing art has never been something that provides solutions to questions, doing the art does!

So if you think that a hand drawn ink line is more detailed and accurate than a pixel line. If you say so.

[Ravey]

[Anthony Flack]

Okay, let me try this from a different angle.

Pixel art is a medium with a resolution low enough that it can actually be calculated. There aren't really any other non-digital media you can say that about, except maybe some forms of mosaic tiling and cross-stitch embroidery. Although in both those cases, there are still elements of technical skill, quality of materials etc. that will have an influence at the "sub-pixel" level.

The reason I said it was a dis on all other artists to say that pixel art has the finest detail, is partly to do with this element of technical skill. Comparing a painting to a 320x240 digital image, it would suggest that the painter is unable to perceive, or control, detail on the painting beyond an equivalent 320x240 grid. Or to put it another way, if you scanned in a drawing at 320x240, you wouldn't lose anything significant.

Whereas of course, a painter will actually examine their work as closely as their eye can see, and will spend years refining their technique and materials until it is exactly how they want it to be. Although they can't control individual picture elements in isolation, the level of refinement is still higher than the resolution of your typical pixel image (even when using broad brush-strokes, you are still aware of the need to do exactly the right kind of strokes). That's why, I think, some people are saying that pixel art has more detail. Because it's so much easier to control.

In fact, the interesting thing about pixel art is that it requires no technical skill whatsoever. I'm sure people are already getting upset about that statement, but think about it: there is no bad way to colour a pixel. It doesn't matter how you hold your mouse. Stephen Hawking could do pixel art just as well as anybody else. There is NOTHING beyond the pixel level that would distinguish good technique from bad.

This isn't something to get offended by; this is what makes pixel art unique. Its low resolution means that anyone can do it. You don't even need a graphic tablet. If you can click on a square, you can make pixel art. It is, technically speaking, easier than other media. But that's nothing to get defensive about!

I think that pixel art people can sometimes feel like their medium is under-appreciated, and get carried away with defending its virtues. And I guess that's understandable, because apart from the people who take it over-seriously, most people don't take it seriously at all.

* TANGENT *

So then it got me wondering, what is the actual current state of pixel art, as an artistic medium? Removed from the context of being an element of video games, I mean. Are pixel artists under-rated in the wider world? Is there anything out there that can support criticism at the highest level, which is being unfairly overlooked?

I'm definitely not an expert on what exists out there, but right now I can't think of anything that would be considered truly great, outside of the pixel art community. I can't think of any pixel artist right now who might be influential and transcendent enough that somebody would want to write a book about them in a hundred years time, for example. It's a very young medium though, so I'm not saying that's impossible.

But for the most part, I see it as being more like a folk art; a craft. It has its own set of traditions. It's something that anybody can get involved in. Fair comment?

[Atnas]

As another angle.   . o .

I'm not one of these "pixel art people" you speak of, I actually happen to do it because I work with small images. So it isn't like, AWWRIGHT TIME TO DO SOME PIXEL ART it's like, I want to do a small digital image and I want to be able to do it rather easily and neatly. Pixel art comes about because there are some things I want/need to do... And I really don't care about pixel art as an art more than/think it's cooler than, any other medium. So I'm not taking the stance of an affronted partisan. I am Vulcan on this matter.

I didn't make the statement about pixel art being the most detail oriented medium/genre/method/whatever, but I supported it because of reasons I already mentioned. I stress the methodology in my argument, not the result of the art. To stress the result is to be biased towards certain pieces and not the medium itself. There is no skill required in pixel art, quite right. But I find that because of this it enables one to detail ultimately because the whole art is one of detail brought about by numbers we articulate with the brain, which is not subject to muscular accidents or minute yet unintentional spasms of the limbs that a painter may experience. A pie divided in 2 RARELY ever produces a half, but 1/2 is always .5, if that makes sense. I'm talking detail as accuracy, maybe that's where the mental dichotomy is at.

or embroidery, yeah

[Simon Andersson]

In fact, the interesting thing about pixel art is that it requires no technical skill whatsoever. I'm sure people are already getting upset about that statement, but think about it: there is no bad way to colour a pixel. It doesn't matter how you hold your mouse. Stephen Hawking could do pixel art just as well as anybody else. There is NOTHING beyond the pixel level that would distinguish good technique from bad.

Saying that it requiers no skill is just you being silly.

It's pretty obviuos that you need a good deal of knowledge about shapes, colors and shadows before doing a even half-decent work of pixelart.
Of course, if you are thinking about it in a fysical way, pixelart is just clicking on a mouse, but in this case painting is indeed just you holding a stick and moving your arm around. You are forgetting that in both cases the actual heavy work, is being done by the mind.

[Atnas]

Ahhh see, a painter is skilled in how he applies paint. As an artist, that's a different story. To be a skilled artist is to be mentally in possession of what you have stated: form, light, color, composition et cetera. But these are all resident in the mind.

Pixel art requires a negligible amount of skill.

[Xion]

It's pretty obviuos that you need a good deal of knowledge about shapes, colors and shadows before doing a even half-decent work of pixelart.

yeah but these are things that you should know whether you're doing pixel art or traditional art or whatever, yeah? They aren't aspects unique to the pixel medium, yeah? Just good art sense to have.

Yeah?

oh atnas posted before me saying pretty much the same thing so yeah I guess I'll just leave this here.

[aeiowu]

I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

~William Faulkner

[Xion]

I, uh...

what?

[JaJitsu]

aw. i loved the book As I Lay Dying.



"My mother is a fish."

[aeiowu]

aw. i loved the book As I Lay Dying.



"My mother is a fish."

That's one of my favorite books ever.

Have you read Sound and the Fury?

[Anthony Flack]

I find that because of this it enables one to detail ultimately because the whole art is one of detail brought about by numbers we articulate with the brain, which is not subject to muscular accidents or minute yet unintentional spasms of the limbs that a painter may experience. A pie divided in 2 RARELY ever produces a half, but 1/2 is always .5, if that makes sense. I'm talking detail as accuracy, maybe that's where the mental dichotomy is at.

Yeah, accuracy rather than detail; quite right. The other, related, odd thing about it is that it is entirely non-physical, but I guess these things are true of all computer-based art... it has a kind of Platonic prefection. It is an abstract thing, and a specific instance of it is created, slightly imperfectly, on your screen or whatever.

[Jrsquee]

consider some images

one is a smooth gradient from white to black, top to bottom
the other is the same gradient, but lots of digital noise covers the gradient

which is more detailed?
which has more information?

[Eclipse]

i totally agree with Anthony Flack, saying that pixel art is playing with the higher level of detail is bullshit, only because you do it using the pixel doesn't mean that you're actually capable of using the pixel do to a level of detail even similar to a good painting if you're not a machine.

The only "detailed" pixel art is the one calculated by a raycast rasterizer, not really the human one.

Pixel art is to digital painting what a mosaic is to painting. I'm sure no one will ever say that a mosaic let you have more detail than an oil painting, and there's even a simple explanation: humans aren't very able to calculate things mathematically. Even doing a simple lit sphere in pixel art will end up horribly compared to a painted one, even if you can in theory modify the single pixels of all the image at your will.
Humans are far better at mixing colors and even a single brush of color is almost impossible to replicate in pixel art in an useful time.
Pixel art is not more powerful or detailed than digital painting at all, or better, it is only when pushing the pixels is a machine and not an human brain.
You can be a very awesome and talented artist but saying that you can do *everything* at your will only because pixel art allow you to modify even the single pixel is quite senseless, because in fact, you can't.

[Jrsquee]

has this become a discussion about whether art x is more valid/better than art y because it has a higher resolution?

[___]

has this become a discussion about whether art x is more valid/better than art y because it has a higher resolution?

That was the first like 10 pages I think.  Now it's on the metaphysical shoe size of the universe, or something.