How to pixel a small car avatar...
tutorial by d-p
Hint: Click on the images to enlarge.

Step 1

Creation of a small pixel car is easy and quick work. Decide if you want to work on transparent or colored background. A light gray is quite neutral and easy to work on.


Step 2

Create the outlines of the car. Take a look at several photos if you are not too sure about the front view of the car. Don't try to round the edges too much, it wont work at that small size, the outlines should be symmetric. As you can see it does not look much like the car (aim: Passat 35i facelift), but it will do.


Step 3

Choose the base color of the car paint and fill the coated parts of the car.


Step 4

The headlights and blinker get some detail with a lighter gray. Simply light the reflectors within the headlights.


Step 5

A darker gray tone fits the plastic parts of the car and the front window. Gray tones can get handy, because you can reuse them often to shade and dither parts of the car. Before adding another color check if you are not able to reuse some gray in combination with an older color.


Step 6

A darker tone of my base color, some dark blue tone, helps to create some shadow around the grill, lights and on the hood. It's about time to choose the light source, we want the light to fall in from top front, which is kind of usual. So the dark blue is used on the bottom of the car. Look, some of the black outlines are already overpainted with blue.


Step 7

A very light gray is added on the headlights to get some depths into it.


Step 8

A lighter blue helps to look the car less flat, we paint some lighter areas on the hood.


Step 9

An even more brighter blue helps to make the paint job look convincing. The black lines in the grill are swaped to dark blue.


Step 10

The black outlines which arent already removed should be eliminated now, since we don't need them anymore. To replace them, choose the blue tones that we already collected till now. Light blue on the roof and dark blue on the bottom.

Step 11

The gray bumber looks way too flat. Some details help to change that, reuse the gray tones.


Step 12

The windshield should get some reflections, too. Add some lighter gray tones on it. Even the dark blue can be used for the fading out to the sides, because the dark blue fits the dark gray quite good in this case.


Step 13

A matter of tase: Add some more extras if you feel like customizing.


Animated version

Here is an animated version of the tutorial.



Edited by d-p - 02 August 2006 at 11:10am

Yay for tuts! \o/

Next you should teach us how to do cars in isometric view. I find it damn difficult.