Easy Pokemon 8bit Art for Kids 8 Bit Art for Kids

During semester one of this year I came across a new style of art called Pixel Art. I was sitting in one of the classrooms of Bassendean Main School listening to a presenter speak. As I looked around the room, I saw some Pixel Art self-portraits displayed on the walls. Subsequently having a adept await at the amazing piece of work the students created, I did some research into the Pixel Fine art niche.

Before I explain how I used Pixel Art in my classroom, I must offering up a word of warning.

Don't let your students blindly search for Pixel Art on the net by themselves. They might accidently come beyond *cough* some inappropriate content. Search up 'Pixel Fine art' in Google Images and you'll know what I mean.

I strongly suggest that you upload appropriate pictures and website links to Connect or another platform that allows you to safely distribute digital content to your students. Fix your rules about what they can and cannot look up and brand sure they, and their parents, accept all signed an 'ICT Code of Conduct' form.

Now don't permit these precautions put you off from running Pixel Art in your classroom. There is some astonishing content out there that students volition love to recreate and will aid provide inspiration for their ain original creations.

So let'due south swoop into 'How to Successfully Teach Pixel Art in Your Classroom'.

WHAT IS PIXEL Art?

Pixel Art is a form of digital fine art that focuses on one matter, the humble square shaped pixel. Your computer monitor, smart phone and fifty-fifty the old Nokia 3310 has a liquid crystal display (LCD). LCD screens are made up of thousands of pixels. Pixels are the tiny squares that change colour in response to the image displayed on your screen. If you squint hard enough, you lot tin can probably come across them on the device you are currently reading this blog on.

When video games became popular in the 1980'due south, estimator game developers only had a limited number of pixels and colours to work with. These technological limitations are why the 1st, 2nd and tertiary generation of video game characters looked 'blocky'. Only the children (and adults) who played video games dorsum and so didn't care about the graphics and I'd make the argument that their original design forms a big function of why video games are all the same popular today.

I cannot imagine the original version of Mario, Sonic or Mega Human looking any different.

PIXEL Fine art PAPER

Firstly, you're going to need some graph newspaper; even so, the graph paper you order from Office Works might not be suitable. Your classroom's needs will depend upon what sort of Pixel Fine art y'all want your students to create. The expert news is that there are many websites on the cyberspace that can meet this requirement. Here are a list of sites that tin generate the necessary graph paper templates that you'll be needing for Pixel Fine art:

• Incompetech (Recommended)

• Print Gratuitous Graph Paper

• Print Online Graph Newspaper

To create the original blocky feeling from the Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari 2600 and even the latest generation of games with a retro experience, so you're going to need graph newspaper with larger squares (ane - 0.75 cm).

As newer video game consoles were released (SNES & Mega Drive) the pixel count increased on the graphic symbol sprites. In this example, you might demand graph paper with smaller squares (0.5 - 0.25 cm). This type of graph paper is too useful for students whose Pixel Art will contain a lot of detail, detail such as backgrounds, characters, copse etc.

See the guide down below for more than data.

When creating your graph newspaper in Incompetech, I recommend setting the number of squares to 300 across by 300 down. I recommend using this setting for iii reasons:

1. This volition maximise the space that students can work with.

2. If students want to cut out their Pixel Art images, and then any leftover paper can be saved for smaller pieces of Pixel Art.

3. This likewise prevents graph paper from beingness wasted.

PIXEL ART IDEAS

Now that we accept the paper, information technology's time to become started with the ideas!

My twelvemonth five/vi classroom loved creating Pixel Art sprites based around pop culture and video game characters. Examples include:

• Star Wars

• Pokemon

• Chance Time

• Terraria

• Minecraft

I conducted a survey of what things my students wanted to replicate on paper and and so went about screen-shooting their Pixel Art requests. My students requested characters like Luigi, Pikachu, Steve from Minecraft, Charizard, Finn, Jake, Princess Bubblegum, Bowser, Ralph from Wreck It Ralph etc.

Once I had an impressive drove of Pixel Art images on my computer, I then uploaded these pictures onto Connect. I was pretty strict with making sure that my students only used Connect to access these 'teacher canonical' pictures. On a side notation, Google'southward child friendly search engine Kiddle blocked out all images of Pixel Fine art. And then unfortunately this search engine, which is usually very useful, won't exist of any help.

Once my students had recreated a few pieces of their favourite Pixel Art images, I got them to brainstorm ideas for their ain original creation. I kept this particular task open concluded and I allowed my students to choose what they wanted to create (assuming it was advisable of course). They needed to create a digital version of their Pixel Fine art image at PixelArt.com and they also needed to create their art form using graph paper.

One time the digital version of their Pixel Art images were finished, students emailed me copies of their Pixel Art. We established the assessor & assessee protocols and then went about evaluating the quality of each other'due south piece of work against a jointly created assessment rubric.

Here are some examples of what my students created.

PIXEL Fine art WEBSITES

1st Recommendation for Digital Designs - PixelArt.com

If you want students to create a digital version of their work in the Pixel Art format, then you're going to need some tools to exercise so. I used PixelArt.com, however, y'all need to exist aware of the drawbacks with using a complimentary website like this:

• There are ads that regularly pop up (I didn't see any inappropriate ads during my time using this website)

• Like the coding website Scratch, at that place is an online customs of users

• Students can import various templates (sprites/backgrounds) to employ in their work

I didn't meet any inappropriate templates when the students were creating their artwork; even so, I cannot guarantee that they don't exist on this website. PixelArt.com does take an online community and whenever you have an online community you cannot guarantee a 'Thou' rated viewing feel. I browsed through the online gallery and I recommend that chief school students don't access this part of the website.

PixelArt.com claims to monitor this content, however, the content that is in some of the galleries is still inappropriate. Encounter the epitome down below regarding what precautions Pixel Art.com takes when monitoring community behaviour.

To get effectually this concern of mine, I kept the students to the draw page and they had to inform me of when they were using the website. Make sure you are doing your due diligence past closely monitoring the classroom whenever your students are the internet. I never permit my students to message anyone or exit comments on a webpage. The only exception to this dominion is when they need to ship an electronic mail to a fellow student from their electronic mail account and the email must be school work related.

Students tin can salvage their pattern every bit a equally '.pixel' file on their computer and they can as well download their final epitome every bit a '.png' file.

2nd Recommendation for Digital Designs - Brik.co

Another option, that is less advanced than PixelArt.com is Brik.co. There are less features to use for your Pixel Fine art, however, it doesn't have the constant ad popups. BRIK is perfect for single image sprites that students desire to create. You lot cannot create moving sprites, but their Pixel Art website does have an awesome trace image feature with their online creation tool.

Unfortunately BRIK does not allow y'all to salve your work; yet, once students have created their single sprite image, they can always screenshot this image equally a way of saving information technology.

BRIK likewise has an online customs and there is a gallery for Pixel Art. I haven't run across whatever inappropriate Pixel Art images on BRIK; nonetheless, brand sure you have a closer look at this part of their website. Delight keep in heed that BRIK is a company that as well sells BRIK related product such every bit greeting cards, laptop display panels and marble runs.

HOW Y'all Tin Utilise EXCEL TO CREATE PIXEL ART

During term 3 2020, I can across a fantastic YouTube channel called Technology for Teachers. I accept embedded a video which shows teachers how they can use Excel to create Pixel Art. I highly recommend that you take the fourth dimension to picket this video.

Final THOUGHTS

Fifty-fifty though I finished this unit of piece of work 10 weeks ago, students regularly inquire me if we can create Pixel Art images again. I occasionally find students of mine making Pixel Art images in their spare fourth dimension and I even so come beyond students who bring in images that they accept created at habitation. Just on this fact solitary, you lot could say that this unit of measurement of work was very successful. It's an accented joy to meet students using the skills you have taught them; it's even better when you run into them use this knowledge to make fifty-fifty more advanced Pixel Art images and animated character sprites.

Thank y'all for reading this week's blog and I hope you are now inspired to run Pixel Art in your classroom. If you lot got something out of 'How to Successfully Teach Pixel Art in Your Classroom' then I desire to hear from you. Don't be afraid to reach out to me on social media or send me an email.

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