A practical tutorial in seven steps, with small interactive demos for the two ideas that make the biggest difference: clean lines and good colour ramps.
1. Start small
Open the editor and set a 16×16 or 32×32 canvas. Every pixel on a small canvas is a decision, which is the whole art form. Large canvases hide mistakes behind detail and take much longer to finish. The size guide lists common sizes by game platform.
2. Pick a limited palette
Choose 4–8 colours before you draw. Constraint makes the image cohesive. A ready-made palette such as PICO-8 or Game Boy removes the temptation to keep tweaking colours.
3. Block in the silhouette
Fill the overall shape with a single mid-tone. If you can’t tell what it is as a flat silhouette, no amount of shading will fix it. Exaggerate: big heads, big hands, clear gaps between limbs.
4. Draw clean lines
Pixel lines are made of horizontal or vertical segments. A line looks smooth when its segments follow a consistent pattern (1-1-1, 2-2-2, 3-3-3) and jagged when lengths jump around (1-3-2). Drag the sliders to see which slopes stay clean:
Segment lengths: 1 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 — uneven. Mixed step lengths create visible “jaggies”. Try a ratio like 1:1, 1:2 or 1:3.
For curves, let segment lengths change gradually (3-2-2-1-1-2-2-3), never abruptly. Also remove doubles: L-shaped corners where a line gets two pixels thick. The pencil in PixelMint draws single-pixel Bresenham lines; the line tool (L) gives you perfect straight runs.
5. Shade with hue-shifted ramps
Pick one light direction, usually top-left, and shade the opposite side. Build each material from a ramp of 3–5 shades. The trick that separates amateur from professional work is hue shifting: as colours get darker they drift towards blue or purple, and as they get lighter they drift towards yellow, the way real light and ambient sky behave. Toggle it here:
Hue-shifted: shadows drift cool, highlights drift warm. The ball looks lit by a real light.
Avoid pillow shading (dark all around the edge, light in the middle) and banding (shades lined up in parallel stripes that follow the outline). Both flatten the form.
6. Anti-alias sparingly, dither on purpose
Anti-aliasing means placing an in-between colour at the step of a jagged edge to soften it. Use it inside the sprite, not on the outer edge, or the sprite will look fuzzy against other backgrounds. Dithering is a checkerboard mix of two colours that fakes a third. Great for skies and textures, noisy on small sprites.
7. Animate and export
Duplicate the frame, change the pose, and use onion skinning to keep the character on model. Export a GIF to share, or a sprite sheet for your game engine. Always scale up by whole numbers (2×, 4×, 8×) so the pixels stay square and sharp.
What to practise next
Redraw one sprite from a game you love at the same size, then compare.
Ask the AI mentor in the editor’s AI feedback tab for a critique of a finished frame.
Frequently asked questions
What do I need to make pixel art?
Only a browser. A free editor such as PixelMint gives you a pencil, fill, palettes and export. A mouse is more precise than a trackpad; a phone or tablet with a stylus also works well.
What size should pixel art be?
Beginners should start at 16×16 or 32×32. Small canvases are faster to finish and teach you to prioritise. See the pixel art size guide for common sizes by platform.
Should pixel art have outlines?
Usually yes for characters and items at small sizes: a dark outline separates the sprite from any background. Many artists use a darker version of the local colour instead of pure black (“selective outlining”) for a softer look.
What is pillow shading and why avoid it?
Pillow shading is lighting a shape from its outline inward, as if the light came from the viewer, which makes everything look puffy. Choose one light direction and shade the side facing away from it.
How long does it take to learn pixel art?
You can make a decent 16×16 sprite on your first day by following the steps here. Real fluency with shading, colour and animation comes from finishing lots of small pieces over a few months.