Pixel Polygon Pushers

Many are celebrating the start of the eighth generation of video games consoles today, with the launch of the PlayStation 4 in the US… seemingly ignoring that the Wii U was released last year. On this frabjous day, i’ve decided to share my gaming machines icons pack.

Sony console icons
Sony consoles say Hi.

I started the pack years ago to use with emulators and practise my pixel art. Initially drawn up for 256 colours and 32×32 dimensions, they don’t use that old Windows standard colour palette now, yet the CDs are the only icons that go over 32 colours, and the only ones which took anything more than the Pencil tool to create.

I have a few older revisions kicking around, so can show you some improvements that came with time:

Old and new console icons
Left sides: ’09 or earlier. Right sides: ’13.

Pixel week

Last weekend I was contacted by a guy who had seen some of my old work – a sprite sheet for a pixel art city. He’s wondering if I can help his team out on a project. Having not done pixel art in 5 years, I wondered that myself.

So, I took the sample image he’d sent me and went isometric on it: It reminds me of Pokémon.

Carl Mitchell's pixelart brown house

That went rather well rather quickly, so I stepped up the ambition for the second image:
Carl Mitchell's pixelart White House

Yep, that’s the White House. No surrounding buildings or vegetation on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but bear in mind it started out as a test (even if it did take a few days). I think I succeeded.