The Jam

The Pixel Scene Jam is a pixel art jam where artists can come together to create a pixel art scene with a common palette and theme. Using the palette, you will have a week to create as many sprites as you want. The submissions will then be combined in a single image to create a scene.

Whether you are a master artist or a beginner, you are welcome to participate in this jam. The goal is to create something with others, and maybe learn something along the way.

The community tab is open if you have any question about the jam or if you want advice on pixel art.

Theme and Palette

Vote for the theme: https://beta.framaforms.org/58764923511556-pixel-scene-jam-theme-vote.

Both the theme and the color palette will be revealed at the start of the jam.

How to submit to the jam

Create an itch.io project and select either the "Game Assets" or "Other" classification. Then, submit your project to the jam. You can either upload your sprites as `.png`, `.gif` or `.webp` images with lossless or no compression (other formats are fine, but are not well suited to pixel art), or in zip or tar archives.

I encourage people to submit their artworks as soon as they are ready so I can start putting them together before the end of the jam. If you want your sprites to be placed somewhere specific in the scene, you may ask for it on your submission page. I can't promise I'll be able to fulfill every request (eg. some may be incompatible).

Rules

• Use the provided color palette to create your sprites.
• Don't copy other's work pixel for pixel. You can take inspiration from others, but what you submit must be an original creation.
• No NSFW (Not Safe For Work) content. Keep things family friendly.
• Don't use generative AI. This jam is for humans to create art together :)

Your submissions to the jam are to be used to create the jam's scene image. As such, they must be available to download for free. Moreover, this scene image will most likely be shared and posted around to showcase what has been done in the jam. However, you still own the sprites you create for the jam, meaning that your express permission must be requested for them to be used for any other purpose.

Resources to get started

If you have never done pixel art before, or if you are a beginner, here are some tips and resources that may be of interest to you.

What software for pixel art ?

I currently use Pixelorama, a free and open source pixel art editor by Orama Interactive. I've also tried Krita (foss), GIMP (foss) and Aseprite (paid). All these options are really solid in my opinion, and it comes down to what you prefer in terms of UI and tooling.

Though any digital art software would probably do. Think of one, and there is probably a tutorial for how use it for pixel art somewhere.

Here are two software lists from other people:

The list from lospec.com: https://lospec.com/pixel-art-software-list/.

Brandon James Greer's list (on youtube). It's from 5 years ago, and it's probably a bit outdated. Though the info on software I know is still mostly accurate, so I feel like it may be helpful.

Edit: I wrote that Aseprite was open source and could be free if you compiled it. It's actually source available, and the license seems to indicate that you cannot use sprites from a copy you compiled yourself for most things. (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, so I may be talking nonsense here)

There exists a foss fork of Aseprite from back when it was open source (2016) called LibreSprite. It has not recieved any new releases since 2023, but the software is still quite actively developed.

How to start ?

I'd say, think of something, grab the color palette, your mouse, and start popping pixels !

Things will probably not look that good at first. Or you may not even know what pixels to start with. I'd suggest searching for images online to draw inspiration from. Try to look at the different shapes and the way things are lit on those images. Even better yet, if you have physical access to an object you want to draw, you can get up and see how it looks from differing point of views and lighting conditions. This is one of the best way to know how to draw stuff and what things are out of place if some are. (Note that it is best to use many references to better understand some subject).

Okay, this was a general art advice. What about pixel art ? In pixel art, the difficulty comes from the limited resolution. It is basically impossible to draw every single detail with so few texels, and shapes are bound to get somewhat distorted. This is the core of this art form. Try to pick only a few features to draw, and think about what shapes are most important to understand what you're drawing. Changing the size of these features and adjusting their form will most likely be needed to accommodate for the small square grid.

I highly recommend the videos on Brandon James Greer's and AdamCYounis' channels if you want to learn more about pixel art.

Don't hesitate to ask questions or ask for advice on the jam's community tab.

Credits

The color palette used for this page is Resurrect 64 by Kerrie Lake (this will not be the palette used for the jam :).