Tag Archives: pixel art

This Crystal Fragment turns everything you see into 8-bit Pixel Art, and it’s FASCINATING

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There is no denying that modern graphic resolutions have reached unachievable heights. Yet, there are many with an emotional connect to pixelated style: an art form that rekindles memories of early computers and video game graphics. If you’re one of them, who rejoices the blurring the lines between analog and digital, you can (when available) lay hands on the Pixel Mirror that creates an inverted pixel image of what’s behind it.

The wearable Pixel Mirror, developed by Hakusi Katei aka Monoli, a Japanese material designer and Ph.D. in engineering, is a crystal that reduces the resolution of what’s behind it – regardless of distance and movement – leaving you with a pixel art of what you are looking at.

Designer: Monoli

Made from light-colored transparent crystal in forest green, gray, and colorless variant, the Pixel Mirror is designed for use in bright environments. While for some of us, it’s only a gimmicky wearable (more on the aspect later) it might have real utility for artists and painters, who can leverage from the immediate, readable fat swatches of the scene behind the prism you’re looking through.

The Pixel Mirror measures 16mm x 16mm x 10mm, which means it’s small enough to be worn as a pendant in a necklace. Monoli’s series of wearable and handheld prisms are all handmade, and because of the nature of polishing natural stones, they are not perfect square “pixels”. They are handmade to suit the condition of the available stone.

After the Pixel Mirror, Monoli now has the Pixel Window in works, which as the artist puts it, “the lens minecrafts scenery without electricity.”  Pixel Mirror is on sale in Japan for ¥ 19,800 (roughly $120). If you’re outside of Japan, you’ll want to keep an eye on Monoli’s tweets for information on international availability.

The post This Crystal Fragment turns everything you see into 8-bit Pixel Art, and it’s FASCINATING first appeared on Yanko Design.

Galaga Enamel Pins Bring the 8-Bit Goodness

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I’ve played a whole lot of arcade games in my lifetime, but one that I always go back to is Namco’s classic Galaga. It’s every bit as playable and challenging today as it was the day it came out in 1981, and now I don’t even have to spend quarters to play it. If you love Galaga as much as I do, check out these enamel pins inspired by the game.

Etsy seller Wardingers creates these awesome pixel art pins based on enemies like the Bee, Butterfly, Scorpion, Galaxian, and Bosconian. I never knew the names of these characters before now – it was easier to kill nameless, soulless aliens. Now every time I go to shoot at them, I’m going to think about that Bosconian’s wife and kids. Thanks, Wardingers, thanks.

The Galaga enamel pins sell for $9.25 each, or you can buy them in sets, with the full 7-piece collection selling for $52.75. Of course, I’d need to buy two fighters because I always joined mine together for maximum firepower.

Divoom Pixoo Max Takes Pixel Art to the Max

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Having grown up in the 1980s, I have a real fondness for pixel art. There are lots of ways to make pixel art of your own these days beyond using programs like Deluxe Paint, from melting Perler beads together to making images with 1×1 LEGO bricks. The Divoom Pixoo Max lets you make pixel art images and animations using a grid of colorful LEDs.

Its 9.6″ screen features a 32 x 32 grid of RGB LED pixels which can be programmed with a companion smartphone app. You can pick from numerous still and animated images in the Divoom Pixel Gallery or create your own. In addition, it can be programmed to display notifications from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram or to display the time or weather.

The Pixoo Max has a built-in stand or can be mounted on your fridge, a wall, or even your car windows. Since it runs on a rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery, you can use it on the road. It’s available from Amazon (affiliate link) for $109.99.

Pac-Man and Ghost Planters Gobble Up Dirt and Power Pills

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If you’re trying to grow plants, you’ll need seeds, dirt, water, and sunlight if you hope to keep them alive. But did you know that plants grow extra strong when you feed them power pills? At least that’s what Pac-Man told me. Or maybe I’m just starting to hear things after being quarantined at home too long. Either way, this Pac-Man and Ghost planter set looks like a fun way to grow house plants.

Manchester, UK outfit RetroGamingCentre makes these colorful 3D-printed plastic planters inspired by Namco’s classic 8-bit arcade game. The set includes a Pac-Man planter, along with Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde pots. Apparently, Inky is as bashful as they said he was on the title screen of the game, and didn’t show up for the garden party. The set comes with a matching blue tray, decorated with white pellets around its edge. Clearly, Pac-Man hasn’t found any power pills yet, because none of the ghosts have turned blue.

The set is available over on Etsy, with prices ranging from about $50 up to $118, depending on the size you go with (6cm or 10cm) and if you want the tray. If Pac-Man isn’t your thing, they also make a Super Mario planter set, a couple of Pokémon planter sets, and also individual planters so you can mix and match.

Celebrate Your Pixel Art Love with These Colorful Plexiglass Sprites

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Those of us who grew up playing video games back in the 1980s have a special place in our hearts for the pixel art characters from the 8-bit arcade and home console world. From Pac-Man to Dig Dug to Donkey Kong to Galaga, game artists had to really stretch their creativity and imagination to give us memorable and identifiable characters using the most primitive of blocks and limited color schemes.

If you love old school pixel art as much as I do, then you need to check out this collection I found over on Etsy.

Idaho-based artist Thunktronix makes all kinds of nifty collectible trinkets based on classic video game characters and items, including all of the aforementioned games, along with Robotron 2049, Wizard of Wor, Frogger, Space Invaders, and more. Each of the sprites is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, so you can put a whole bunch of these on your shelf without taking up too much space.

Each one is precision cut from 1/4″-thick plexiglass, with some characters getting colorful backprinting, and others left to stand on their own as see-through shapes. In addition to video game characters, they’ve got a few other great designs, like Ignignokt and Err, the iconic, antagonistic, bird-flipping Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which I just had to buy for myself.

Some pieces are sold individually, while many of them come in complete sprite sets. Prices start at just $5 for a single keychain-sized figure, while full game sprite sets range from $25 to $32. You can check out all of their designs over on the Thunktronix Etsy shop.

‘Alt254’ is a Zelda-style adventure where you play as a pixel

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The next generation of gaming is almost upon us and we’ve had some peeks at super-detailed and realistic visuals for upcoming PS5 and Xbox Series X titles. We’ll get a look at some more this Thursday during the Xbox games showcase. But an upcoming in...

Divoom Ditoo Bluetooth Speaker Displays Pixel Art on a Tiny Retro Computer

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If you love the retro look of pixel art, check out this little desktop accessory that not only can display custom pixel art, but can play music and work as an alarm clock, among other things. The Divoom Ditoo looks like a tiny all-in-one computer, and displays colorful animations on its tiny screen.

The Ditoo works in concert with a companion mobile app to load up over 1000 different pixel art images and animations from an online pixel art community. Its 16 x 16 dot matrix display can display 16 million different colors at each of its pixels, and can also be used to do things like show social media alerts, or display the time or weather forecast, each triggered via the mobile app. It can even play primitive games like Snake, Tetris, and Breakout on its tiny LED screen. Its built-in Bluetooth speaker isn’t exactly huge, but it does offer 10 watts of amplification, and the reviews on Amazon say that it actually sounds pretty good for its size. It can also play MP3 files loaded from a TF card (up to 64GB.)

It really does look like a miniature computer, though it only has six keys on its mechanical keyboard, and its joystick only moves on one axis. Measuring in at 3.54″ x 4.48″ x 4.77″, it’s actually small enough to put in the palm of your hand.

The video below from :3ildcat shows the Divoom Ditoo in action, along with some demonstrations of its audio quality and volume compared to some other small speakers.

You can grab a Divoom Ditoo pixel art speaker over on Amazon for $79.90. It’s available in five different colors: black, white, green, blue, and pink.

Pixels + Taxidermy = Pixidermy

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The idea of having a real taxidermy animal head on my wall creeps me out. I think it would just stare at me all day long, thinking I was the one who had it stuffed and mounted. I think these pixelated taxidermy heads are a much better idea.

Artist Ketaro Yamada of Chicago’s Pixidermy makes these awesome pieces of sculpture, which he creates by gluing together birch wood cubes. The resulting voxel art trophy heads look like animals who spent some time living in Minecraft. What’s really cool about these is that Ketaro creates all of these designs by hand, and doesn’t use computer software to design the images.

He’s made a variety of these, including blocky versions of deer, ram, ibexes, longhorns, rhinos, and more. The cost and size of the sculptures varies depending on the size of wood cubes and the complexity of the finished Pixidermy head. Some of his smaller pieces start at as little as $129, while his biggest and most complex pieces can hit $2499.

Drop by the Pixidermy Etsy shop to check out the entire wooden menagerie.

smART Pixelator Turns Your Images Into Pixel Art Templates

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I have a very soft spot in my heart for pixel art, having grown up in the 1980s with rudimentary 8-bit and 16-bit video games dominating my formative years. So I really love anything that encourages the creation of pixel-based designs. The smART Pixelator does just that – letting you easily turn any image into a real life pixel art creation.

Working in concert with a mobile app, this battery-powered toy takes photos from your smartphone, and converts them into color images on its built in RGB LED matrix. This serves as a template onto which you can place colored pegs, sequins, or beads. Once your design is complete, you can remove the tray and frame your artwork. It’s basically like a modern day Lite Brite, except you can actually keep your completed designs.

If you use pixel beads, you can extract your images from the Pixelator and gently iron them through a special sheet to melt them into a permanent pixel art creation. As is shown in the video below, you can even create larger images which take up more than one screen on the device.

The smART Pixelator is available now over on Amazon. Prices start around $40, and they also sell add-on bead, peg, and sequin sets for about $15 to $20 each. I would have so loved to have one of these when I was a kid.