About a month ago I started a Tumblr for pixel art called Pixlexism. It's not like there aren't plenty of blogs out there already: Pixel Scenery and Noirlac (and Noirlac Sourced for that matter) are just a few examples. Despite how crowded Tumblr already was with similar blogs, I decided I still wanted a place to collect the art that inspired me as I came across it. After all, my ever growing list of saved Reddit links, Tumblr likes, and Twitter favorites wasn't the easiest to navigate. I didn't expect I'd be queuing up three posts a day a month later. I especially didn't think I'd spend a good chunk of every shift at work travelling down a rabbit hole of related artists, games, and sources.
Sources are probably the most important thing about running Pixlexism to me. I did it at first to, you know, not be a dick to the original artists. Yet, I quickly found a ton of cool artists in the process, which in turn led me to find other artists, which led me to find new games, and so on. I started the blog by basically emptying out my favorites and saved posts from Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, and the like, sourcing them along the way (Google reverse image search is a livesaver there). It's not uncommon for me to search an image's source only to come across another blog that collects pixel art, which then leads me to find MORE art. When I finally get around to posting that original image, I've often got four or five more to go with it, as well as a new artist or three on my following list. My favorite recent discovery is the game Path to the Sky, and I'd like to think that sourcing it helped a few people discover a game they'd never heard of before. Likewise, I often post original content from the Pixel Art subreddit in hopes that the artists will gain more attention for their hard work.
The one thing I'd like people to take away from this blog is that pixel art isn't just a matter of nostalgia, but one of many ways we can create art using a set of constraints. In a similar way to glitch art, it's visually appealing to some, off-putting to others, and an impressive feat either way. Games like Hyper Light Drifter and Paradise Lost: First Contact are visually stunning in ways that older consoles could never pull off. It's not about being nostalgic for the games of the past, but exploring what is still achievable with a series of squares and a limited color palette. This is why we now have programs like Hexels, which helps artists create images out of hexagons. This being said, I doubt pixel art would be nearly as prominent these days without video games. People still play the original Super Mario Bros. because it looks damned cool. Super Metroid (and these days, Lone Survivor) was just as good at creating isolating alien environments as some of the latest shooters and horror games. These games created worlds out of nothing but a few dots on the screen, and they were damned good at it.
I could go on trying to validate pixel art as some sort of higher art form, but it's simple - I like this stuff because it looks good. I made a blog because I wanted to collect my favorite art in one place. Unexpectedly, I found tons of artists and a couple of games I've never heard of before because of it. And more art is awesome.
