Hm, where do I start…

Skymagi is transitioning to pixel art!

Why?

• I do not have the art skills of my sister or Blaise, nor their ability to animate high fidelity characters.
• I love pixel art.
• Skymagi is deeply rooted in nostalgia of older games for me, and pixel art captures that aesthetic well.
• I think it just works.

So, I started with a duck.

And then I made a cauldron. (Shoutout to Woostar for their amazing pixel art skills, they are a huge inspiration for me).

I chose to use 24x24 / 32x32 for most creatures and characters. I know I’ll need enough detail to convey RTS complexity, so a low pixel count seemed too difficult, and 64x64 seemed too high detail for my skill level. It also didn’t hit the vibe I was going for.

The most important challenge

Cauldrons and ducks are well and good, but mages are the most important part of Skymagi. I have a wealth of beautiful concept art for mages, but how does it look as pixel art?

I started with the Pyromancer.

And that is when I fell in love with the pixel art style for Skymagi.

The mages are adorable. They converted perfectly to pixel art. It oozes personality. The color choices are saturated and easily distinguishable, all of the unique features still transfer fairly well.

And then the Necromancer.

PIXEL ART ALL THE MAGES!

I spent the next few weeks creating every mage pixel-by-pixel. Some of them I had to reimagine, but I attempted to preserve the aesthetic of every mage. Everyday I created a different mage. And of course, my sister gave advice on how to capture the vision of each mage (thank you!!)

I played around with versions that had weapons and without, both assets will be important (for items):

And just like that, Skymagi’s art style was born.

I’ve created a lot of things for Skymagi, but this is what I am the most proud of.

Original Art	Pixel (Front)	Pixel (Side)

Now time for the rest.