A pixel art maker app can help you create graphic designs, games, and even cartoons. Technology is becoming more and more advanced, and artificial intelligence (AI) can help people create lots of types of digital art.
What Is Pixel Art & Why Should You Use It
Pixel art is a form of digital drawing where you use only single pixels as your building blocks. While it sounds a little technical, it actually makes creating digital art relatively simple. Since a pixel is the smallest programmable unit of color on a digital display, pixel art then lets users create images one pixel at a time. And because of this, the number of colors available is actually pretty low, making it easier to create the art piece that you want.
Pixel art was popular in the ’90s when video games were taking off. And though pixel art isn’t as sophisticated as some other forms of digital art available today, the nostalgia and ease-of-use factor have made it popular again.
Let’s take a look at some of the best pixel art maker apps you can use to enhance your creativity and unlock your inner artist.
1. Get Creative With the Pixilart Mobile App
One of the best pixel art makers is the Pixilart mobile app. It has plenty of options (and is available for Android or Apple smartphones), so you can explore your creativity and create many interesting pieces of art. Tapping or dragging only moves the cursor, and you can add pixels when you’re ready by using the “Draw” button.
You can also use a variety of filters to adjust contrast levels and colors. And speaking of colors, there are more than 65,000 user-generated color palettes available. You can start with a premade, black-and-white drawing base and then cover it with the colors you choose.
With this app, you can also create canvases of any size under 700 pixels.
You can make your own art, or you can choose from a large list of publicly available artwork as well.
Another option to help you create your pixel art are Stamps. Stamps are snippets of images uploaded by other users that you can use in your own images.
Besides Stamps, the Text tool lets you add text in different fonts to the images you create.
You can even create a custom:
- Mug
- T-shirt
- Poster
- Tote bag
- Phone case
2. Create Bigger Art Using an iPad With Procreate
The Procreate app for Apple iPad is also a great pixel art maker choice, which comes with 46 different types of pixel brushes. With this app’s Palette Capture feature, you can import an image from iPad’s Photo app and then make a custom palette of the colors in that image.
Procreate allows you to make detailed images that look like paintings or drawings, and you can also create images with individual pixels visible that have a retro look.
Other features of this pixel art maker app include:
- High-definition canvases
- An intuitive interface that’s easy to use
- The ability to create animations and 3D images
- 64-bit color
- Continuous automatic saving to keep you from losing your work
- Custom brushes
- Metallic paint colors
- A variety of textures
- Advanced stroke stabilization
- Time-lapse replay that lets you watch the recent progress you made on your art
- Compatible with the Apple Pencil
3. For a Smaller Device Like an iPhone, Try Procreate Pocket
Procreate Pocket, iPhone App of the Year in 2018, is a similar pixel art maker app from the makers of Procrate, but it works with the iPhone instead of the iPad.
Procreate Pocket can do everything that the original Procreate app can, including:
- Modifying brushes for a new look
- Combining your favorite brushes
- Using a variety of filters to give your images different looks
- Altering existing photos
Another fun feature is the Color Harmony color palette, which provides unique, complimentary color profiles in order to help you find a great match every time and create beautiful images.
4. Pixly Has Convenient Tools & Is Easy to Use
Pixly is a great pixel art maker for beginners because it’s easy to learn. One feature is something called onion skinning. With this feature, you can see several frames of an animation simultaneously and make sure all the images line up with each other and look smooth. The frames look transparent, like the layers of an onion, so you can see multiple images at once.
This pixel art maker works with Android touchscreen devices, and it also has a customizable zoom level and Google Drive as well as Dropbox integration.
Pixly also features:
- Undo and redo buttons to make correcting mistakes easy
- A customizable spray tool
- A customizable color gradient and color mixing tool
- Customizable background colors
- Mirrors for creating symmetrical images
- Advanced copy and paste
In addition, you can use this app to make huge artworks and animations which are up to 4098 pixels wide and long.
Download a Pixel Art Maker App & Create Beautiful Art Anywhere
Professional and amateur animators, as well as artists use pixel art to create vibrant and interesting art in games, cartoons, and more. But with these easy-to-use pixel art maker apps you can, too.
