Book excerpt: Make Your Own Pixel Art is a complete, illustrated introduction to the creation of pixel art aimed at beginners just starting out right through to the experienced pixel artist wanting to enhance their skills. Hand anyone a pencil and paper and they can start drawing, but it's just as easy to draw digitally using a keyboard and mouse. With Make Your Own Pixel Art, pixel artist Jennifer Dawe and game designer Matthew Humphries walk you step-by-step through the available tools, pixel art techniques, the importance of shapes, colors, shading, and how to turn your art into animation. By the end of the book, you'll be creating art far beyond what's possible on paper! Make Your Own Pixel Art will teach you about: - Creating pixel art using the most popular art software and the common tools they provide - Drawing with pixels, including sculpting, shading, texture, and color use - The basics of motion and how to animate your pixel art creations - Best practices for saving, sharing, sketching, and adding emotion to your art With a dash of creativity and the help of Make Your Own Pixel Art, your digital drawings can be brought to life, shared with the world, and form a basis for a career in art, design, or the video games industry.