kartooner.com

Pixel Art has since become a wildly popular Internet graphics phenomenon. Several sites have adopted Pixel-driven art to offset realistic graphics and subpar “trendy” grid databases.

Pixel Art is none other than creating digital portraits of people, places, things and objects with miminal tools. Mainly, the 1 pixel by 1 pixel format combined with a 256-color (or more if preferred) palette. Pixel Artists from all over the globe have created amazing works of art that are displayed on sites around the Internet. However, the birth of this artform was originally and more commonly used for early computer games (notably the Kings Quest series by Robert Williams).

Software artists used this pixeling technique to portray exotic islands, fantasy realms and science fiction settings. This technique, since replaced by 3-dimensional graphics is still prominent in some isometric and cultural/city building games.

Yet, with the adoption of the Internet as a pop-culture reference tool — Pixel Art has a place to stay. Whether it be in a web designer’s interface or to simply dress the entire site in an interesting mask of pixel goodness — Pixel Art takes patience and that makes you appreciate the artists even more so.

Here’s some great sites painted in Pixel Art:

Protokid is a chat-powered realm that is entirely showcased in Pixelness. Register your avatar and get typing!

City Creator is a Pixel-driven site that allows you to create tiny urban cultures. Simply choose your graphic (house, street, tree, etc.) - place it on the grid area and build yourself an environment for Tiny Midget people. Yes, that’s redundant. I know.

So You Wanna Be a Pixel Artist is for those of you who are interested in doing this for a living or just dabbling in it for fun. It’s a step-by-step guide with helpful hints and links to better hone your pixelness!

Dude Studios, while not exactly Pixel art, still deserves a spot in this linkage for the work this guy has put into this series. Basically he’s re-done the Star Wars Trilogy in cutesy cartoon style, but the real gem is the visual style and the mere 2-5 minutes (per episode) his cartoons cover as opposed to the 2+ hours the real movies took to tell the same story.

Meomi is “dedicated to the creation of compelling visual experiences and narratives. We do work for multiple mediums and strongly believe in design that delights, entices, and inspires” — according to the site’s creator. I especially like the Meomilizer, essentially a character creation area. Really neat features.