2015: The Year of Pixel Dailies
Retronator Community Feature
As the year comes to a close and Retronator Magazine celebrates a successful launch into the world, I want to dedicate this last 2015 article to the community that’s had its own thriving year behind it.
@Pixel_Dailies was founded on Twitter in 2014 by Ben Porter (a.k.a. @Eigenbom a.k.a. The Moonman) and Dario (a.k.a. @Neobrsk). The premise is simple: a theme is announced every day, followed by retweets of submitted artworks. Nothing more, just a chance for daily practice.
After a steady rise to popularity, 2015 saw Pixel Dailies’ first full year of operation. Ben commemorated the 1st birthday with a reflection of his own journey in 365 Days of Pixel Art. The two founders were joined by Gurkan Te (a.k.a. @ShroomArts) to complete the team. The rest is history — or I guess the future.
Many Twitter handles made their name in pixel art circles thanks to Pixel Dailies. The activity’s ephemeral nature makes it easy for beginners to get a foot in the door — most submissions are characters or objects on plain backgrounds so it’s easy to create something up to par if you put some effort in. Efficiency, mastery and style take you above and beyond and we’re often left in awe by those that break the mold and manage to submit full illustrations or animated works in the short time frame.
Twitter’s narrow 506px timeline (or tiny mobile displays) don’t do most of these works justice so it is my pleasure to show them in the trademark Retronator Magazine format with images that almost spill out of the screen.
The selection in the article is my personal “Best of 2015”, mainly based on the most popular tweets in the last half of the year, with some extras from early 2015 when I ran a weekly top selection on my Tumblr blog.
I’m sure I’ve missed some massively outstanding work this way, so feel free to tweet at me any favorites I haven’t covered. I follow many of you and it’s great to see how much everyone’s improving.
The themes vary wildly. From the gaming ones you’ve seen so far, we can move on to ones that take us toward glorious scenes.
In all reality, at the masters level, it’s not as much the theme that defines where the artworks will go, it’s up to the artist’s imagination. Clever reinterpretations are one of the most fun parts.
Sometimes the theme is to study a certain aspect of drawing or mimic a style of a game or another artist. It’s good to step out of your shoes once in a while.
Animations are, as usual, a big way to make artworks stand out. You will find everything from flying environments to tiny stories.
From Looney Tunes to Ghibli, there are no boring days in Pixel Dailies land.
If you want to give Pixel Dailies a try, all you need is a Twitter account and throwing a glance at @Pixel_Dailies to see the current theme. When you’re done with the artwork you post it to your timeline with a mention of @Pixel_Dailies and hashtags #Pixel_Dailies and that day’s theme. More detailed information can be found on Ben’s Pixel Dailies site.
Pixel Dailies have been a welcome addition to themed competitions, next to Pixel Joint’s weekly challenges. Daily practice is a guaranteed way to polish your skills and if you join it with deliberate improvement (reading tutorials, studying art theory, analyzing masterpieces) you’ll be on the fastest track of improvement.
I’m excited to follow the scene even closer in the future, after I build the daily tracking as one of the first features of Pixel Art Academy. I hope the themes continue for years to come and we see many new faces joining in the fun.
Ta-da! Here we are, at the end of 2015, at the end of the first year of Retronator Magazine. In 2016 I wish you take many steps towards making your dreams come true. Keep creating beautiful artworks, keep improving, stay happy.
See you in 20–1–6,
— Retro
