8-bit Heather

For my 3rd assignment this week, I brought it back to this week’s theme of Heathers and the ’80s. The assignment was to create a pixel image of a person or object. To keep with the theme, I decided to try and create Heather Chandler in pixel form.

To create the pixel drawing, I used the reference photo above from an image search. I didn’t own any sort of pixel art software (and I didn’t want to do the headache that is Paint) so I did a quick google search and found a site called Pixilart; it’s free to use and it makes creating pixel art super easy. All I had to do was set the dimensions (the assignment said 16 x 16) and get working. Pixilart has a wide range of tools, including layers! I recommend it for people who want to dabble in some pixel art.

To start I did a basic shape of the head using skin color, and then did a base yellow for the hair till it looked how I wanted. Once the ‘bones’ of the portrait were in place I added the bow and blazer to finish the frame. Adding shadows and highlights helps bring it to life, as it does in other forms of art. So I simply found darker shades of the base colors and added some shadows, and did the same with highlights by selecting colors that were brighter. Doing it in pixel form was a bit tricky since you can’t be as specific as you’d like, but for a first attempt, I think I did pretty well.

Once I had it how I wanted it, Pixilart had an easy download feature where I could make the image the size I wanted and I saved it as a png. I thought this project was easy to learn the basics of, and it makes me excited to create some more pixel art. I might try and tackle all of the characters from Heathers, who knows!