do i need to know how to draw to make pixel art

[ganjafiut]

i cant draw for ♥♥♥♥

[Albcatmastercat]

That's pretty difficult to answer, as you're pretty much asking "do I need to know how to draw to draw?".

Pixelart is just another style of drawing.

You can improve if you keep at it though.

[Lilith]

You don't need previous drawing experience to learn how to draw in pixel art.
If you want a course to guide you, I'll recommend this one: https://www.udemy.com/pixel-art-master-course/

[ganjafiut]

This looks worth checking out, thanks

[Suds]

Hmm. I'd say it helps but no you don't need to do it.

I draw on the side a little. Always have. But Pixel art is pretty new for me. I thought the toughest part was just learning my system. Drawing you just do it with your hand. But Pixel art, I think it's more forgiving with layers, copy & paste. You can refine what you do a lot.

There are a ton of how to do pixel art tutorials out there and I'd recommend those but what has helped me just as much is getting out there and just start doing it. Figure out your system.

For example. Say I'm doing a pixel art portrait character. I'll take black and with bigger blocks draw the relative shape close to what I'm looking for. I'm trying to draw it as best as possible but I'm just doing the outline. Then I fill it in with black. Sometimes if I'm doing a head or something, i'll use a circle or shape to help me out but it's largely free hand.

Here's where it's important not to freak out because if yours looks anything like mine at this point it looks like a 1st grader scribbled some deformed blob shape on your canvas. But now you get to go back with making your pixel size down to 1, erase obvious messed up parts. bad corners, etc. Fine tune it. You'll be surprised that it doesn't take long to go from looking like a disaster to a shape that you'd consider "just okay". ;)

After the shape is done, I begin to do primary colors. Shading comes later. I also recommend dividing up parts of the body into layers in case you have to fine-tune move things.

It's really great because if you don't like something, it's just so darn easy to alter that section and keep going until you like it.

Hope any part of this has helped.

PS - Oh yeah. As a newbie, I like pulling up reference pictures or other pixel art similar to what I'm going for to help me along. I'd definitely recommend that.

[Chironyx]

I've been doing pixelart for years now, and I've jumped into pixelart without knowing how to draw.

Do you need to know how to draw? my answer is - absolutely not, pixelart is unique in the aspect that you don't need to know how to draw in order to make it.
The thing about pixel art is how easily and cleanly you can change stuff if they seem wrong in your eye.

So, do you need to know how to draw in order to do pixel art? nope.
BUT, do I HIGHLY recommend that you learn how to draw? yes!

Here is the archive of my pixel art blog:

https://pixelchyro.tumblr.com/archive

I started this blog a few months into pixel art, after I finished my UDemy pixel art course and felt like I can somewhat draw independently.
You can see my very slow improvement from the lower posts to my higher posts.

If you'll look at my post from January 2019 - you'll see that the style is suddenly much more refined and better-looking (in my opinion), I made that while finally studying drawing theory.

Jump forward to April 2019, that's when I finished studying drawing theory and character design on UDemy - you'll see a BIG difference from the rest of the posts.

Imagine how good I could've been today if I studied theory from day one, huh?
I used to feel like I'm in the dark when beginning a new drawing in the past, the blank page was terrifying, but now that I know some theory, I have a solid foundation and feel like I actually know what I'm doing as I draw.

Regardless of your choice - to just start pixeling or to study drawing first - do one of the two, pick up drawing, it is a wonderful medium that I would suggest to anyone regardless of their life, personality or occupation!