Ancient Web: Derek Yu Revisited His 2005 Pixel-Art Lessons

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

Pixels are small enough to count individually. That does not make them easy to arrange, as independent game developer Derek Yu explains by taking an awkward little scene and rebuilding it piece by piece.

Read Pixel Art: Common Mistakes.

The page is a companion to Pixel Art Tutorial: Basics, where Yu constructs a game sprite from simple forms. His follow-up begins with an intentionally naive scene. It has too many similar colors, flat shapes, stiff figures and the sort of shading that makes objects look inflated rather than dimensional.

Instead of simply showing a finished replacement, Yu explains each decision. He reduces the palette, increases contrast and introduces light and volume. A treetop becomes a collection of round masses rather than a thousand separate leaves. He discourages 'pillow shading,' where colors brighten toward the center regardless of a light source.

An old lesson grows up

The present tutorial dates from the late 2010s, but its history runs backward. In a December 2019 account, indie developer Gianfranco Berardi recalls Yu's earlier ten-step tutorial from around 2005 and describes the newly rewritten lesson. The old one showed how to draw a cartoonish lucha lawyer; the new version uses an orc.

That distinction matters. The current page is not a preserved, unchanged 2005 document. It is a later remake by the original artist, revealing what he thought was worth teaching after years of making games.

Yu's advice ranges beyond technical rules. He warns that editing somebody else's artwork without invitation can be rude. He calls one of his own heuristics the 'Chunky Pixels Rule,' because thin single-pixel limbs can be hard to shade or give convincing volume. At the end, a before-and-after comparison lets readers disagree with his choices.

A Make Games index places the lessons beside writing on feedback, risk and the development of Spelunky. The page is a personal teaching resource with roots in an older do-it-yourself development community, not a universal standard for all pixel art.

Explore the comparison and the earlier tutorial's successor.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.