I'm thinking of making an ISG using pixel art. I don't know a lot about the technical aspects, though, like what size to make the image, how to make it larger without ruining the quality, how to make sprites, etc. I can make characters and doodle with paint.net well enough, I just don't know how to effectively keep using them without drawing them manually each time. (Basically a system for the updates) Any help?
Well you can look at the two pixel ISGs I've made (
1,
2), Escaped Lurker has done a few as well. When it comes to pixel art usually you're going to be scaling the images up x2 or x4 (since pixels are squares, you have to resize by even numbers or else the drawing won't scale perfectly)—which is what I did for In the Dark and Stalk.exe—in order to make them readable on the forums, but if the drawings are hi-res you might not need to do that, but those would have to be very big drawings. Re-using sprites is something that a lot of artists get away with in video games, you'll be able to use the same kinds of tricks as long as you're conscientious about it, in order to make the work more manageable. What I did for both of mine was to choose a resolution and stick to it, that way the amount of time you spend on each drawing will be easy to gauge. If you're doing lots of scenes or trying to come up with new characters, do a really shitty storyboard first on notebook paper and scribble characters and interactibles like items, doors and switches where you want them to go. It's the same as designing levels for a video game really.
If you're doing pixel art, you've got to do it manually. No brushes or anything except for line work or setting up your values on larger images. The whole idea of pixel art is that you're controlling the placement of each individual pixel, so if you're doing things manually, you're doing it right! It sounds like a lot of work, and trust me it's just as hard as it sounds. I recommend JackBread's videos on YT if you want to see some quick examples of texturing, character design and animation.
What are your goals for the game, if I may ask?