Complications

Tough times?

The process of making the graphics in Klik & Play has been pretty rough. The editor has a lot of useful functions. You can easily resize the canvas for your images and eye-dropping color is as easy as using your right click. Two of the main flaws that I have encountered is there is no way to change the width of your tool (so you can only have a 1x1 pixel brush or line which is frustrating for covering large surfaces) and the selection tool some times erases the entire canvas. Erasing the entire canvas is frustrating because the editor only allows one undo and there is no save function unless you move out of the window.

Lots of errors.

I would not have to worry about using this editor because there is an import graphics feature, but I keep getting this error if I do not save in a specific bitmap format which shuts Klik & Play off. When I do save in what I think is the correct bmp format it lets me select a section of the image I want to import. This is frustrating because with pixel art every pixel counts, so often times I am sure I am not selecting exactly everything that I want, but that doesn't matter because whenever I select anything the only thing that shows up is a sliver of color.

However,

These limitations, though frustrating, are helping me to find new possibilities. Klik & Play has an extensive clip art library that I have been utilizing. I have also been working very small and then blowing up the images and working on them so I can get big areas covered and focus on detail later. Sometimes this creates jarring differences in resolution, but using these harsh differences in resolution seems to be what the program is allowing me. Fighting these differences would not be using the medium of Klik & Play, so I should either stick with it or use another program.

This jet was featured in James Bridle's talk. 

New Aesthetic.

These changes in resolution are in direct relation to what James Bridle was talking about in his keynote speech "Waving at the Machines". In this speech Bridle talks about how digital interfaces and languages are being made real in the forms of sculpture, architecture, clothing designs, and various other mediums. He talks about how acknowledging these ways of seeing it is the the human way of trying to talk to machines; to try to speak in machine language it will help us communicate with machines easier.

Pixel art is talking to machines. Pixel art is seen as retro now because current standard resolution makes pixels less noticeable. I see using pixels currently as several things, though the primary is a way of understanding how computer graphics work. Whenever you zoom in on a computerized image the graphics still work on a pixel by pixel level. When working in 2D video game graphics two of the main styles are using pixel graphics or using vector graphics. The advantage of using pixel graphics no matter the resolution, the artist has absolute control.

For now,

I am going to use these differences of resolution in Klik & Play to my advantage in telling the story and creating atmosphere.