Episode 252: Celeste Art Director Pedro Medeiros & How To Become A Professional Pixel Artist

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the final episode of the Animation Industry podcast. Wow. Um, m. I'm feeling so many things right now. Uh, it's hard to put into words, but it's uh, it's a mixture of sadness, a little bit of regret for ending this. Uh, a little bit of relief for ending this. Uh, like a sense of completeness. I'm a little bit excited, a whole bunch of other things, I suppose. So basically I've decided it's time for me to devote myself to other projects and also just to have a little bit of extra free time during the week. Um, uh, if you've been listening, you know, I started this podcast on a whim back in 2018 when I quit my job in business and decided to get into the animation industry. I went to the Taffy Animation Conference in Toronto and had no idea about anything in this industry and I had no connections and I didn't uh, even have any animation to show. But my old boss, I was texting him in the conference and he suggested I go up to the keynote speaker and ask him to be on my podcast. Of course I didn't have a podcast, but he said it was a great way of learning more and making good connections. So I did. And that keynote speaker was none other than the amazing Fred Seibert, who instantly agreed to be on my podcast. So then I had to scramble and figure out how to do this. And uh, ever since I've been running it every single week, it just hasn't stopped. And I've chatted with so many of my personal animation heroes. It's been incredible. As well as everybody from aspiring animators, hobbyists, pros, studio owners, and more from around the world. You know, probably two dozen countries. Um, Japan, Canada, obviously us, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, France, Italy, the uk, Australia, Morocco, South Africa, and more and more and more. This, this podcast has really been life changing and career changing for me. It's gotten me some really super cool work. I know other people have gotten work too from it, which is amazing. Uh, I've made some great connections, some great friends, and kind of the weirdest part is when I go to some of these conferences or schools or studios, people already know who I am because of this. Somebody would be like, hey, your voice sounds familiar. Wait a minute. Yeah, I'm that guy that runs that podcast. Uh, but overall, you know, this podcast, I feel like it's had a really good run, especially hitting 250 episodes. I feel super proud and accomplishful for that, getting emotional again. Um, and I'm just So grateful to everyone who's tuned in over the years. You know, this has been such a journey and I really can't believe how many people listen to this. Every month it gets about 10,000, uh, listens. And, uh, you know, I tallied up all the listens over its lifetime. Recently it's, it's hit well over half a million, which is incredible. I never dreamed of starting something like this and continuing it for so long. Um, um, so thank you so much to everybody who's tuned in over the years. Uh, thank you for following this journey with me. I really hope that, um, you've gotten something out of it and, you know, it's been a time. Uh, one final note is that I may be publishing future episodes because there are still people I'm trying to get a hold of that I'd love to chat to, but I'm not making any promises. So this is the final episode of this podcast. Now onto this week's episode. Today I'm chatting with Pedro Mederos, a pixel artist and video game art director known for such titles as Celeste, Towerfall, and his current unreleased projects called Earthblade and Neverway. In our chat, Pedro shares how he got into pixel art in Brazil when video game development was absolutely non existent there, as well as his process for developing a video game's art style from, um, scratch. He's also going to share everything you wanted to know and learn about becoming a professional pixel artist. So without further ado, let's jump in. Hello, Pedro, how's it going?

Speaker A: Hello. I'm, uh, going well. How are you doing great.

Speaker B: Thanks for coming on the chat. Big fan of Celeste. Um, it's very, very hard as well. But the thing that stood out to me instantly when I first started playing it is the pixel art is just super fantastic and fun and like cute and it all works. So I want to talk all about pixel art.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Today you're probably, uh, your whole life revolves around pixel art at this point.

Speaker A: Yeah, it didn't start like that, but yeah.

Speaker B: So, uh, tell me, how do you get into pixel art? Specifically because you can't go to school and study pixel art.

Speaker A: No, I don't think even some people. I've seen some like, pixel art courses and stuff like that and think like people getting into art from the pixel art perspective. I think while that's like a valid approach, I would not recommend things like that. Uh, my background is actually from like, um, just like graphic design and actually sculpture. I studied a lot of like physical sculptures.

Speaker B: Uh, does that ever. Okay. So because. Because like, my thinking was you need like a strong, like, color theory.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And graphic, uh, design totally makes sense because you're like, really trying to highlight and not highlight different things.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like, it's a totally different approach than like, illustration, uh, in a lot of the cases. But do you ever. When you're. You said your background's in sculpture, does that ever play come to like, play? And when you're creating pixel art?

Speaker A: When you think so, because. Because like, again, like, for sculpture, you need also to learn. You also need to learn like, like the basics, the fundamentals, like anatomy and everything. So I think it. And that also like, comes into play with pixel art and like the simplifying shapes and everything and things. Trying to, trying to see things like in 3D like before. So things like that really, I think really help. So. Because I feel the pixel art is just like a medium, like watercolor or sculpture or whatever. So.

Speaker B: So then how did you get into pixel art from graphic design? Because, like, that doesn't seem like a very clear.

Speaker A: No, I mean, I mean, I always, I always dabbled into like, like, like, like pixel art since I was a kid. I actually started when I, like, when I was very young. I was doing like, uh, SimCity 2000 mods.

Speaker B: Love it.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's the thing that I really liked. Uh, I also had like, this programming language that I learned in school called Megalogo, which was in Portuguese, and it was very weird, but it had like a sprite editor, like integrated to it. And that's how I started animating when I was a kid. But then I almost like forgot about it. Like, there was like a long time that I just didn't do any pixel art. But later, um, after college actually, I wanted to make a game and I was using Construct and I wanted something very simple and I was like, oh, I know how to do some pixel art. I, uh, did a little bit for. As a hobby. So I started like studying more it and like, I don't know, I think I can use my. To translate my art style into pixel art. And from that I kind of like snowballed and I started studying like by myself. But I always use like a lot of fundaments from like traditional drawing, sculpture or whatever into that.

Speaker B: So it kind of came about as like a necessity for you to execute this game idea you had rather than like, I'm a graphic designer and I see pixel art and I would love a career in, in that. Uh, so what happened with this first game? Like, obviously, which, uh, game is Is this.

Speaker A: Oh it's, it's called six Feet over or something. It's like a zombie shooter. Like it's just like a very simple like one week game that I did with Amora. Uh, she also working on Celestial, the character designer. Ah, yeah. And back then we did games together. Miniboss. Uh, we did also another game called Tabut's Odyssey and eventually we did Out There Somewhere which is uh, another platformer. But the thing is like I remember we sat down and like ask ourselves what's the simplest thing we can do to make it like a basic game? That, that was back in 2009, uh, 2010. Ah. And we were like okay, maybe pixel art. Called Pixel Art. It's very simple. There's like not many colors you can tile tiling things in Pixel art is very easy which is great. You can get away with just like a black square, a few dots and that's ground now. Right. Things like that. So it came out of that came out like okay, what's the simplest thing? Because we were like just two people. I didn't really know how to program. We had to do art and programming. So uh, it came from that. And I also like personally I always liked pixel art. I always saw pixel art games. I thought they were cool and everything.

Speaker B: So why did you aim to make a game in the first place? Were you working full time and you're like uh, this would be a cool hobby or were you really want to get into gaming with.

Speaker A: No, I really wanted to get into gaming, uh, started. So I'm from Brazil, right originally. Ah. Now I live in Vancouver. But back in Brazil especially in 2009 there was like no games company, like no game company there. Like there was nothing. And I don't know, I don't even think I wanted to be like an indie or anything. I just wanted to work with games in general. And since there was like nowhere I could like apply for a job or something, I was like oh no, I think I have to make my own I guess. And, and, and, and I started making like I, I wanted to make like make something basically. And, and I thought like wow, I cannot do like a AAA MMORPG or something. I need to do like the simplest thing I can possibly do first and then I can scale up from there. And that's how I started like okay, so um, Miyamura. We went to randomly actually to a workshop about construct, which is like game maker but simpler even back then. And I was like, oh, this is something we can do. And from there we Started this game and then we did a second one which was like slightly longer one and there was like no one was making games back especially back in Brazil back then. So we actually won a bunch of awards.

Speaker B: Wow. From where like uh, you publish these games on like

Speaker A: I uh. I don't think we publish it like on like there was not. We couldn't get on Steam or something like that back then. Uh, but we did publish it on the zero which was like a popular modding and website and thing for it was like way before Itch IO. Um. Wow. Uh, and we got some awards from like uh. I don't know, I think Brazilian government and like were like trying to like get more people to make games and stuff. And we were like we just submitted our game and started winning them and we're like oh that's good. And that kind of moved us forward until we managed to get to do other somewhere.

Speaker B: Wow. Okay. So. So you must have like a pretty self starting mentality to just be like you know what this, this doesn't even exist in my whole country. I'm just gonna make this. And, and. And then you want some awards. And then the Brazilian government was like we need more game. Game industry here. There's money there. So like let's. Awesome.

Speaker A: I mean I think yeah, some, some were like private too. I mean I don't know. It was just like a bunch of like. I remember there was like one of like Game music festival. We also won whatever called the music from that game was really good.

Speaker B: So you feeling like pretty good at the time. Like you just made this thing yourselves and then some awards getting some attention.

Speaker A: Yeah, it was really good. Was really good. Um, it was a cool time that was happening there. There was like a lot of like we saw a bunch of like small companies starting to show up in Brazil. Uh, a few of them are still here. Like uh, there's um called Joy Masher. They're great. They do like very retro games. They're from back then. They also were in the same style of like we want to make games. There's not like a large industry here. Let's just do something that was like the mentality back then. Cool, cool.

Speaker B: So how did you end up working on out there somewhere? Did you apply? Did you like.

Speaker A: No. Oh there somewhere was uh. No, we also made it like was just like me and Amora.

Speaker B: Yeah, you've just made all the games you've ever. So. So you also have like a background in like coding and and yeah. Yeah, that really helps a little bit. Because one of my questions was like, how much coding knowledge do you need, uh, to execute your pixel art style? Because like, pixel art especially is so integrated into the design of the game in, in terms of like, I don't know, it has to be like pixel perfect when a character lands. Especially in Celeste, where like, people are holding on to like, well, literally the pixels.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think in general you don't need not like any knowledge in coding anything if you want to do pixel art. Um, but the more you have, I, uh, think more useful you can be for the whole team and everything. Because, because back then, like the thing that happened, like for me, I went like technical school and I learned programming. I wasn't good, but I knew something. Um, and that helped me a lot. Like those games, like, how they're somewhere topbox out here. Like all those old games, I coded them using like game maker things. Like very simple things. Um, but I, Yeah, I don't know. I think it helps to know how the game works because, uh, you can come with, come up with creative solutions for problems like parallaxing on how you blend tiles. How do they. Like, for example, if you want to do a character that changes hats, for example, do you need to draw all the positions? Again, you just place the hat on top. Can you place an anchor how programmatically you can use solve things? So things like that. I think it helps if you have some coding knowledge.

Speaker B: So like on a daily, like you're working on two new games now, like on a daily basis, like, how much are you jumping into the actual coding versus like just going to town drawing pixel art?

Speaker A: Um, on Earth Blade, I don't code a lot. I code a little bit sometimes. Especially like, like when there's like some small things that I need to do, like for editor stuff. Um, but. But for Never Way, the site project, uh, working with easa, uh, I'm actually coding a lot. I coded like, like daily. Like, like, uh, it's. It's. I would say almost like 50. 50.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So like, well, that m leads me to like, ask like, how big of a team is working on like Neverway or like Earthblade?

Speaker A: Um, yeah, Earth Blade is a little bigger. Uh, there's like seven, I think.

Speaker B: Okay, that's pretty, that's still pretty intimate. Like.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Never Way is just five.

Speaker B: How many were on in comparison? Like, like, well, what's the biggest game you've ever worked on?

Speaker A: I guess I think still probably in every way not or the last. Like, I mean, if you Count. It kind of, kind of depends. Like the teams are kind of hard to say. Like oh, five people, seven people, nine people. Because there's like a bunch of like contractors too. There's some people that do like just one job and they leave. There's some people, they work on the game every day. Um, so it's. I don't know what counts.

Speaker B: Like five to seven core people.

Speaker A: Yeah, let's say like five to seven core people. In general is the size of the team, like all the games have been like this for a while.

Speaker B: Is that typical to other games of like indie studio games of your size, do you think? Because that seems like very small to me.

Speaker A: I think so. Okay. I mean I think that that's typical. I mean uh, some games are bigger, like, like more like like triple Y games or something. I recall it's like uh, they have like 30 uh, people, 40 people, but usually no more than that.

Speaker B: Got you. So, okay, so you have a ton of experience specifically in pixel art and coding. Pixel art for games, uh, is like, is this your thing? Is uh, like are you ever going to try like a different type of style game? Or do you only see like pixel art? Because, because you mentioned it came out of necessity. Yeah, at the beginning. But you know you're super developed in it now. You like. I've even read like your how to be consistent uh, in like your art style and stuff. So you're like creating rules and like perfecting what you do versus like. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker A: Yeah, I know. Uh, okay. Yeah, originally I wanted to be like concept artists, like digital art and stuff like that. Do arts like stuff like Magic, the Gate Gathering and I don't know, Blizzard stuff. But that was like what I always wanted. I'm kind of glad that you didn't went that direction. I kind of like more the thing that I do now, but I also like. Okay, the thing. Like I love to explore random stuff. For example, we uh, did celeste uh 64 which was like a 3 uh, D version of Celeste. Recently it was just like a game jam thing and I did all the 3D art uh, and it was sounds like very low poly 3D stuff and stuff like that. Uh, the team we're working on Earthblade, we worked on a prototype which was like a cel shaded 2D game kind of painterly style and I was also doing it. But in the end, honestly I feel that I kinda in the future I see myself doing more pixel. I kind of like it. I think that's what I'm doing more

Speaker B: consistently from like a perspective. Like, pixel art has such a unique look and it's also like you can tell when somebody is doing pixel art, but it's not. It's not good. I guess there's a lot of games where like, it just looks like they slapped, like they didn't create like rules of consistency or something. And like, it looks like they just slapped a bunch of like, uh, other like random objects, assets they found together. And like. So like, you know, there's like, especially Celeste and you know, I've seen the previews of your other games. There's like such a cohesive, uh, like style that has been like perfected and figured out. So. So like, do you want to talk to creating that and how. Because that's different than uh, like an illustrative design as well.

Speaker A: I think what we. What I like to think pixel art as, uh, like something like, uh. Well, pixel art is a mosaic, right? It's just like. It's like a grid. You have a grid, you have squares, you place the mosaic there. Right. People have been doing that since, I don't know, ancient times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna say Middle Ages.

Speaker B: Like.

Speaker A: No, no, Middle Ages. Like, like way before so being. People have been doing that since ever. Um, but the thing is, that's a limitation that we like an arbitrary limitation. We have to keep the style consistent. Um, and during, I don't know, video games history, pixel art was always almost like a bad limitation from most developers. People kind of didn't like pixel art when we're doing it. Imagine in the Super Nintendo, people were almost like fighting against the pixel art. They were doing pixel art. But we're like, I don't want to do that. I want circle. I don't want to do a square. Yeah, yeah. So they developed techniques to make the squares look as round, ah. As they could, basically. Right. Um, and I feel that's like. Especially when people do like, retro stuff, I feel that that's where they miss the most. Like, what's game do? Like, they remember like, oh, pixel art. Kind of squarey, right? So I just put a bunch of squares and make this as square as possible. And it will look good, right? Usually don't, because that's not how people usually did it. When you have a limitation like that, even if it's arbitrary, like we did in Celeste, we had a resolution of 320 by 180. I think it's very small. And it's like, um, when I'm drawing, I'm always trying to Fight to the resolution as much as I can. Okay. I'm like, okay, I have this resolution. I need to make this look as round as I possibly can. So I'm fighting against it. Uh, the other game I'm working on, uh, Neverway, we have a very, very limited color palette. We have like, uh, eight actually have two secret colors now, but it's kind of mostly eight colors and that's it. And the way I'm doing it, I'm fighting those color limitations all the time. I'm trying to like, okay, how can I extract as much color as I possibly can from those eight colors? Oh, I'm, um, making the palette. The whole palette begins shift, for example, things like that. So when you, when you have a limitation like that, I feel it's counterintuitive. But your job as an artist is try to fight it and push it as much as you can. That's how you get the most of those limitations. I feel that makes that.

Speaker B: That's very interesting. So, like, it, like, correct me if I'm wrong, but your approach to pixel art is like you're trying to create, I guess, like as much realism or stand out or like push it as much as possible. But you, you're working within these constraints. So that would force you to come up with like creative, uh, gradient or shading solutions to make something look. Yeah, better, I guess. However, you also mentioned, uh, you're limited to like eight colors or something. So like from an art direction standpoint, like, how do you come up with those rules at the beginning to say like, like eight colors or. Why eight colors?

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, a lot of people, they get like arbitrary, uh, limitations from um, retro consoles like, oh, how do NES worked, or the game board only had two colors.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, when I'm going to do that. But I don't like that in general because I think those limitations, they were very, uh, like the four colors of Game Boy. They were not chosen by an artist, they were chosen by like an engineer. They were like, oh, the wavelength of something is easier if you did this.

Speaker B: It was bound by technology at the time.

Speaker A: Yeah. Nowadays we're choosing that for artistic reasons. So we basically, uh, so what I try to come up with when I'm trying to find limitation like that is like, what will be kind of cool, basically what kind of limitation I can get that will usually do two things. Right. Ideally, uh, will prevent me of over scoping things. So if I have like just four colors, it's kind of easier. Right. Because there's not much like for tiles, for example, I can just. It's just for color. Like, whatever. If I scribble something, your mind will see something there. And I don't need a lot of work. Uh, that's one thing. The second thing, like, it won't constrain me too much to. At the point that I just can't do stuff. Uh, because if you limit yourself too much sometimes, like one color. Oh, you cannot express yourself enough sometimes.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Actually three things. And the third one, it needs to look interesting somehow and original. Right. Like, never. Wait. This game that I'm doing with the eight colors have this. When you look at it, we're like, okay, it's that weird game with the purple palette with something. Right.

Speaker B: Gotcha. So it's like part of its calling card. That's. It makes it stand.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So. So if you can get something like that, like, like on Celeste was also, like, something that we could do. Actually, when. When I joined the project, we already had that. That resolution. And they asked me if I wanted to change it, but. But I think, uh, I just liked it. I was like, oh, this is very low resolution. This is cool. I started with. With a fixed, uh, color palette. Almost every single game I worked on is always like this. I say, I, uh, will do a fixed color palette, and I will not change it two months into the project. Like, the color palette. Let's do it. Whatever. Uh, and we just. I just give up on the color palette every single time. Uh, never way is the only one that I think I've been keeping, uh, that color palette because I ingrained it into the code of the game. I cannot get rid of it anymore.

Speaker B: Everything is purple. You can't suddenly have, like, I don't know, bright green.

Speaker A: Yeah. And also, like, I put, like, the. The way the game is coded, like, I cannot put more colors in there, basically. So. Yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. So, like, besides the color palette and like, the screen resolution, like, what do you usually prepare before you even execute the game? Like, from a, uh, art direction standpoint, like, um, like for TV show or a movie, you know, there's concept art. They, like, do a character rotation. Uh, they have, like, everybody's seen the rules of the Simpsons, how their eyes work and stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like, for a video game, is it very. Is it very similar? Are there different things that you include?

Speaker A: I think depends a lot on the team. Uh, I've seen a lot of different things happening.

Speaker B: So, like, what's a must have for you before you're like, no, we have to go.

Speaker A: For me, I Need a mockup. I need to make a mockup of the game. That's the first thing I do.

Speaker B: Like a mock up. Like a sample screenshot of what a scene can look like.

Speaker A: It's a fake screenshot. I just open my drawing software and I take a screenshot of the game. Like a fake one. Uh, I just draw a scene for the game. Like the whole complete thing. It won't be exactly what we will have in the end, but it will work as a guide for everything else. So usually we have an idea, we have a, okay, this game will be a platformer about, I don't know, jumping on spikes. And then I drill the spikes and I see how it looks. Um, I usually also do like, um, I usually like to work like a big canvas and I just draw like many, many, many variations of the protagonist or something of, uh, right now usually actually I try to avoid the protagonist for the first drawing, but I try to draw like an enemy or something. And until I get a style in

Speaker B: general, how much of like you also mentioned, you kind of figure out the style as you go along too. Right? But you don't, you try not to stray away too much. That original? Yeah, yeah. So like, so like starting a video game from scratch, you kind of wait till the idea is there. Uh, like, you know, it's platformer, spikes, whatever, then you create a mock up and then, and then use that as the base to say like, all right, this is kind of how it's going to look and feel.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's a back and forth. Usually, uh, we have an idea and then we do a mockup and then the idea changes a little bit and keeps going. Um, it changes a little bit. Earth Blade changes a lot. It's been too long. Uh, that's not normal for a game to take this long. Uh, so if you look at the first mockups, it's like completely different game, uh, another aesthetic and everything. But. But for smaller games like Celeste or Never Way, right now it's kind of. Then it's more like, okay, you see the first mockup, you see the game right now, you see where this is going coming from. Uh, it kind of makes sense in general.

Speaker B: So like, okay, so from I guess like a marketing business, whatever standpoint, like you're in charge of the art direction and the execution essentially. How much do you kind of like check out what else is out there, competition wise or like what, what the market is like leaning towards like the indie game scene to integrate into your, your art or you just like you're like, you know what? I'm uh, the expert. I want to figure this out because like, you know, an art style is very, very connected to the experience somebody has when they play the game. So like, you don't want to mess something up and like, I don't know, it doesn't get the right attention because you picked M. Maybe purple's not in when you come out with.

Speaker A: I think. I know. I constantly look at things even like on Twitter, like ArtStation. Everywhere. Everywhere I can. Everybody can consume whatever art I can see, whatever games. Um, I try to be very aware of everything I can. And I try to look at it, but I usually don't. Yeah. What I try to do, I try to use a lot of things as reference, but I try to not use the same thing. For example, uh, it's very unlikely for me to see a screenshot of a game that someone made or something and say, oh, this is cool. I want something like this. But it's very common for me to see a random drawing that someone made, like a fan art someone did for another game and say, oh, that's fan art. That's not pixel art. Would be cool if I adapted this to pixel art.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: Something so. Or for example, I, I actually look a lot of um, uh, fashion, uh, stuff. I look a lot of like um, fashion brands. They have a really cool like, aesthetics and everything. Bands, um, with like um, music videos. Music videos are great for, for getting like what people are listening and what they're like, like the aesthetics they're going for.

Speaker B: Um, so it's not like you're doing like crazy intense research. It's more like, ah, you know, you're consuming as much as you can and kind of taking what's inspiring you. And I mean that makes sense from like a subliminal standpoint. You're taking all this information and sorting it out behind the scenes anyways.

Speaker A: Exactly. I don't want kind of. It's a thing that I kind of don't want to. I don't want to because if I'm copying a game, games take a long, long time to make. So like at least one year or something like for the fast ones. Uh, so at uh, the point a game is out, and if you start looking at this as reference, the point of your game is out. This is gone already. Right?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: This is like the thing here is already done and people are already like. So if you want to do something original and something interesting, you can't look at other uh, like other games. You need to look at like other kinds of art, you need to look at music and like movies and anything that's kind of uh, will be translated into games in five years.

Speaker B: Totally. I mean that makes sense for anything. It's so funny. Like on games and like TV shows even you can tell when something was just a copycat at the time. And then it comes out a couple of years later and you're like, oh, well this just looks like 10 other games now and it's not interesting versus like you know, the, the games that really stand out. Uh, I'm just curious. At what point did you start working on Celeste and how did, how did that uh, how did that happen?

Speaker A: Uh, Celeste was. I'm really bad with dates. I think it was 2013 or something. And we. But, but, but the thing was like me and Amora, we were finished working on Out There Somewhere, which is like this puzzle platform we made. Then we did another game. We made another game called uh, Deep Dungeons of Doom which is so bad it was supposed to be a completely different thing. The publisher we got got us to make a free to play game with horrible monetization. It was terrible. But anyway. But that game had cool pixel art in it. And back then, uh, I was friends with Chevy Online and, and Chevy was friends with Maddie and they looked the game like oh, this is a cool aesthetic. We can go. And they called us for Tower, um, Fall. Yeah, we work on Tower Fall. Then uh, and Miyamara M was just like oh yeah. To be like it was a freelance or something. Like let's do it. And then it got like more intense and we're like oh, we're doing this. And eventually we come here to Vancouver to visit everyone team and everything. It was really good. And then we kind of got used to working together I guess. Uh, after Tower Fall was released, was critically very uh, successful and everything. Uh, and then Marion all started working on Celeste and then I joined the team shortly after.

Speaker B: Uh, so it really was just like kind of a random online connection.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So. But if you weren't on Celeste, you would have been making video games anyways. It's not.

Speaker A: Yeah, probably.

Speaker B: Yeah. So like. Okay, so how uh, have you hired other Pixel artists as well when you're working on these games? Or do you do.

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, I hired usually not as usually for specific stuff. Deep, uh, Dungeons of Doom. Uh, my friend, uh, Danilo, which is from Joy Masher, which also does really cool stuff, he did some like the cutscene art. Uh, I have some art assistants for Earthblade Uh, my question is, like, how

Speaker B: do you find pixel artists who like, meet the standard of what you want to do? And also, like, because like, you know, there's not a traditional path to get into pixel art or even m. The pixel artists I know are just because, like, I follow them on Instagram or something.

Speaker A: Yes. It's kind of the same. I kind of have to see them online or on some game or have some personal connection for someone that knows someone. There's not really a lot, um, on. Yeah. But honestly, I don't actually hire a lot of. I mean, we. I hire usually for very specific things. It's usually because I really like the art of that person.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I like, oh, I want. I want that like, never way has, um, Deceiver is going to. Is helping me with some of the art, uh, of the items, like close up items. He's really good at doing like this, um, very detailed thing. And I was like, oh, I always wanted you to work with this guy. Like, such a good inspiration. Like, oh, you want to do it? This is helping. Things like that help happens. Um, but. But yeah, like, for Art assistant, it's kind of hard for me. I think it's more like a me problem. And I'm not very good at like, delegating tasks. And yeah, it is what I used to. It Usually I'm like, oh, I think I can do this. I'm like, I never know what I can do, what I should give to someone do. And. And then, I don't know. I'm just bad at it, I think.

Speaker B: I mean, that's fair. That's fair. Whatever. Um, because I was just wondering, is there like an online community of pixel artists that, you know, like, that everybody kind of is drawn to and. And people get hired from or whatnot? Because how do people get into pixel art other than just like, uh, random. They enjoy it and we're playing around with it. Like you, you know, like you said, there's not a course.

Speaker A: Really back then there was this community called Pixel Joint. Was like a forum and like, uh, a deviantart but for pixel arts. Uh, and everyone was so rude.

Speaker B: Oh, no, Pixel artists are the rudest people.

Speaker A: Turns out. No, no, they know they're fine each other, but every. But there was like this very like, strong like, oh, this is not real pixel art. You're using the paint bucket. Stuff like that.

Speaker B: I see. I see.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I mean, I, I, uh, I never got into Pixar, but I, I dabbled myself when I was much younger. And I remember people like, this is not true pixel art. I think I even. I'm still part of, like, a Pixar Facebook group.

Speaker A: Oh, well. Yeah. But honestly, uh, I think this is such a dated way to think. I honestly don't care if something is true pixel art or not. I just care if it's good. Yeah.

Speaker B: If it looks good. Right.

Speaker A: Yeah. I don't think there's any merit in something being pixel art or not. It's just like, imagine you make a painting, like a watercolor painting, and some. Like, this is not true watercolor. Use a bit of gouache.

Speaker B: Hey, people are like that. People are like that. I know people who are like that, so.

Speaker A: Oh, God. Yeah. Like, I don't care if you, Whatever you like, say it's mixed media, then, um, it's a.

Speaker B: It's an image, like, whatever. Who cares?

Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. If the person, like, expressing themselves and they are, like, managing to. To convey the, uh, whatever they wanted to put on the paper, I think that's valid.

Speaker B: Gotcha. Yeah, I mean, uh, I mean, you also put out a ton of resources too. So, uh, people have been eating those up. And.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think the thing, like, for me, like, when I started Pixel Art, it was kind of hard because I couldn't find any, like, oh, this is the book that explains pixel art or whatever. Right. And I remember when I was doing like, uh, sculpture or inking or something, there was, like, a lot of resources you can find. There's like, so many good books. And I was being a little like, more like academic. I like books and stuff like that. I like resources like that. And I was like, well, I guess I have to make it. So I started looking. There was a bunch of cool tutorials online, but they were very decentralized. So I tried to get a bunch from everything that I could find and try to centralize as much as I could into, like, a place that could be easily, like, like, digested, let's say. And that's how I came up with, like, the tutorial format that I usually did, which is like, Like a little square. It's a gif, animated GIF with a bunch of information. And. And I was posting that online and. Yeah, and I think people really like that in general.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, uh, I have so many questions. I don't think we'll ask them all, but I'm just wondering, like, the difference between, like, pixel art as a still image and pixel art as an animation, because, like, the two are very, I would imagine, treated very, very differently. Especially with an animation, like sometimes like one dot, uh, placed strategically can indicate like a whole emotion or something.

Speaker A: I think both come with adventure advantages and disadvantages. Like if you're doing just a still image, you can let's say like, like bush it your way a lot. You can just, you can't, you can just like escape from so much with like, uh, you can just like, um, because things are not moving. So you can just make everything like baked into the image. Like the light can be very baked and everything. But if you're doing like an animation, you have to, okay, what's behind this, what's behind there. But at the same time, especially at lower resolutions, uh, some things would not be readable if they were not animated. It's kind of hard to explain, but at very low resolution you don't have a lot of information to work with. So if things can move, you can say, oh, that's a face. Oh, that's an eye.

Speaker B: Right. Or the thing that comes to my head is like a character laughing. It's just like pixels going up and down. But you like.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know they're laughing. Exactly. But if you don't, if you're not animated, you want to make a character with a two, uh, pixel mouth laugh. Yeah. I don't know. It's impossible. You just can't do it.

Speaker B: Interesting. So some, in some ways it's almost like better to animate it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And just have it as a still.

Speaker A: Ah, yeah.

Speaker B: I guess I just have one, one more question. You know, I want to be cognizant of, of your time as well. Like, um, you've been posting uh, like your behind the scenes images on like never way and like, and stuff. Is there, is there a big adv to like, I guess like showing off, uh, what the development looks like before it actually comes out. And like, is that, is that like a community building thing? Is it just because you're interested in doing it? Like, my immediate thought would be like, I don't want to show anybody because it's not ready yet. You know, get my change.

Speaker A: It's a mix. Um, I like showing some stuff for a series of reasons. I don't like showing you sometimes because of other reasons. But mostly it's um, okay, when I'm showing something, I can get some feedback. Uh, even if, if I'm not asking for feedback. Like uh, oh, the, the proportions are wrong. It's not art feedback that I want. I want, I want to see what people feel when I show them, when they really see that. So Sometimes some people say, oh, that character is so me. Or this, that character. Oh, ew, that's gross. But I like it. Stuff like that, you know, like. Yeah, I want, I want to see the reaction because it's. It's a long thing, like making a game. So it's like, so getting a glimpse of the reaction. I think it's cool.

Speaker B: Um, and you mean like on Twitter or something, right? Like.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, on Twitter. Or, uh, like Discord. Sometimes. Discord. I can show more stuff sometimes because it's one less people will see it. Right? Yeah. But the thing is, the second thing is. Yeah, there is this thing about showing a little bit of the game and people getting hyped up because there's people that really like your stuff, they follow you and whatever, you show a little glimpse that they're interested in it and they want to see more. Um, but honestly, I'm not that worried about changing or, or showing too much. Before I was a little. Oh, this is too spoilery and everything. But honestly, a person that's kind of following the account or following the artists of a dev team around, they kind of don't really care that much, I guess.

Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to ask because, like, I'm an animator and the only people who follow me are animators.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: Like, I don't have a general audience for my.

Speaker A: Exactly. Me neither. Uh, I have a little bit.

Speaker B: So it's mostly like pixel artists or like artists that are following you?

Speaker A: I think so. I think I. I don't have like a very simple. But I think it's mostly game developers. Other game developers.

Speaker B: Gotcha.

Speaker A: Uh, so. So whatever is spoiled to other game developers, which probably are not my target audience, let's say.

Speaker B: I would have thought they. I. Like, that's surprising to me. I would have thought that people who like the games you're playing would have followed you because of. Of seeing behind.

Speaker A: No, definitely. There is. Definitely there's a bunch of people that follow me, which are people that really like the game and they like the art and. But they are more like enthusiasts. I don't think the very general audience of the games follows me.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: I think, I mean, because the number like, like the amount of followers and things that I have is not nearly as much as I see people talking about it online.

Speaker B: Okay, that's fair.

Speaker A: And I think, I mean, so there. But there is, There is a limit. Uh, for example, for example, never way. I was posting as I was developing the core concept and I want to see the reaction, everything now that I Know where the game is going more. I'm kind of not posting less and less because it's not as valuable for me right now to show off. Okay, right. Because right now what I need to do next, it's announce it properly. I need like a trailer. I need something to show. Okay, let's build up hype and let's see what people say of the teaser. Whatever. Um, but because the game got into a state that, well, I guess that's what I'm doing right now. So I'm interesting.

Speaker B: So posting is more or less like testing the waters to see how people react.

Speaker A: That's how I see.

Speaker B: And then once you feel like confident about pursuing a full steam ahead, you just like, you just execute it.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's how I usually do it. And then I post again when it's kind of closer to lounge or something to. And now it's like building up hype. Um, but then I don't know how marketing works anymore because nowadays without social media scales and everything's weird. But uh, but back then I would just, that was my plan. I would just try to build up hype and everything, things like that.

Speaker B: So I guess like, you know, you started off in graphic design, you dabbled, uh, in video games because it didn't exist in the country. Or that led to making some cool stuff, winning some awards, getting pulled into Celeste from a random online friend connection, and now you're making a hundred thousand games a minute.

Speaker A: Yeah, kind of like that. Yeah.

Speaker B: Is this, is this like, you know, is this it for you? Have you like found your thing? Like you want to stay in like video games?

Speaker A: I think so, yeah. I mean, since I was a kid, I always liked making games. I was making, uh, RPG system, like tabletop RPG systems when I was like 10. And that's the thing that I always did like. So that's. I think that's the thing I'll still be doing forever now.

Speaker B: Crazy how something you enjoyed when you were 10 years old become and you take it seriously. It's like your actual life.

Speaker A: No. Yeah, exactly. Ah, honestly, there's some character tropes and stuff that I came up when I was literally 10 years old that I still use today. I mean, it's just like, I mean, obvious. Of course they're completely different right now.

Speaker B: Well, yeah, but they develop them in your mind since then.

Speaker A: Yeah, but I know they're from there. I know that the 10 year old Pedro was the one that came up with this weird idea.

Speaker B: Wow. I mean, that's crazy. Uh, so like you know, you've already kind of shared what you're working on next. You're working on Neverway and, and uh, Earthblade and, and Road to Ghoulcrest too, I guess.

Speaker A: Rocha, Ghoulcrest is Neverway. We changed the name.

Speaker B: Oh, okay. Okay. I was wondering if those two different things because I saw that randomly and I haven't found any other information on it.

Speaker A: No, no.

Speaker B: Which is like, it's like a, ah, it seems to me like Stardew Valley meets uh, like death.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I would say kind of. I mean it's not really a farming thing anymore. It's more like, uh, reminds me a little bit more like link to the past with farming and crafting elements. I don't know. It's a thing. We started as like a bunch of influences, but right now I think we're almost like doing our own thing. I don't even know what it is anymore, I guess. One last.

Speaker B: Oh, uh, I said one last question for me is like you've worked on so many different games. Each. Each one is like completely. Not maybe along the same line. Like you've done platforms or whatever. Like they all have different concepts. At what point does your team say this is the concept we're gonna run with? Like everybody's on board. Like how do you get to that decision when you know you're bringing in a whole bunch of different people. Um, and like you want to make sure you're having like a concept that you can all run with and, and like develop and there's not like a lot of like logic errors and how this would or would not work or like, I don't know, say somebody doesn't like farming and they're like, well, I don't want to go on a farming game. Like, you know what I mean?

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: So how do you come to a consensus to the point where you're like, now we're going to go forward with this and take it seriously?

Speaker A: I think, I think, I think it usually starts with someone. Someone is the lead. Always. We need someone to be the lead.

Speaker B: Like I have a really good concept. I've thought about this. I flesh it out in my mind. Here's. Here it is. Would you.

Speaker A: Ideally we have someone that's the lead and that person also did a prototype. That's the ideal scenario. That's not what always happens, but that's ideal scenario.

Speaker B: Somebody's already like gone in and coded something and it's got some basic gameplay.

Speaker A: Yeah. Out there somewhere. For example, I did this tiny Prototype. And I show it to Amora was like, oh, look at this. I have a teleport gun, uh, working, and the little astronaut want to do it. And she was like, yeah, let's do it. So then we join and then we make the team showing this prototype almost. Okay, um, same thing with the dangers of doom. Um, Towerfall. Maddie, um, showed me a, uh, working prototype of a little game with, like, tiny archers and everything. She did herself and everything. And I was like, okay, you want to turn this into a real game? We're like, yeah, let's do it. Same thing with Celeste. Celeste was no. And Maddie, they made, uh, Pico 8 prototype. So there's always someone that kind of made something like an idea, uh, like something. Right. Uh, and Neverway was actually like, Road to Googress back then was actually, oh, let's try this angle. Isa, uh, she's the one programming. She's making the engine for the game. And the game was actually an excuse to test the engine. So. And the thing kind of spiraled, like, completely out of control now. And it's a full game, but. But yeah, it started like that. So it started like, oh, let's test this thing. And then. Okay, now this is making more sense. And every time we're like, stepping. Yeah, so. So this one is more collaborative. I think me and her were keep, like, changing the game itself. But, but, but still comes from ISAs like, base engine, let's say.

Speaker B: That makes a lot of sense. Like, somebody's spearheading it. They have a prototype, everybody kind of tested out and they're like, yeah, this makes sense. Let's jump on board and develop it. Okay, cool. Um, is there anything that we didn't chat about that you wanted to still chat about or share?

Speaker A: I don't know. I. I think, I think. I think that's all,

Speaker B: I guess. Maybe final thoughts for somebody who may be listening and wants to pursue a career like you have, where they, you know, pixel art, but developed a unique style or, or gaming whatnot, like, what to focus on.

Speaker A: One advice that I can give, uh, which is, I don'. Know, it's kind of. It's kind of hard sometimes. But one thing that I kind of try to do is like, I try to not have anything in the job. Like, making games is hard and it's weird and it's like, there's nothing should be, like, beneath you in the sense that, oh, I don't. I cannot learn how to do, like, this weird XML file that my programmer need or I can't oh, uh, GitHub. I, I don't know what it is. I don't want to touch it. Things like that. I think that's very common for artists. Like to avoid learning more technical things. Totally. Because they are like, uh, this is not for me. I uh, would advise against that. And, and just try to learn the thing sometimes because that, that will push you so much forward because it's such a multidisciplinary field. Games. Right. Like, and, and I think, well, it's fine if you don't want to, but, but, but just, just knowing that like, uh, if you become a more multidisciplinary person, you can have so much more originality and so much more quality on your art. Yeah. Just because you understand how the, how the thing works and you have so much more power because you can do stuff with it.

Speaker B: 100% agree. And even like thinking of your own path, like if you had just focused on pixel art.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like you wouldn't have ended up where you were. You would have like an online portfolio just waiting for somebody else to like pick up.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Your work versus like look at all the pixel art stuff you've done or whether you've made a whole career out of it just by having some uh, coding knowledge. So I think that's.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: 100%. Yeah. It's not beneath you. There is, there is a tendency of artists to be like, I just want to focus on art and not think about anything.

Speaker A: And, and I agree. I think, I think that's a valid approach. I think that's. But, but, but, but just knowing like if you want to go into games specifically having that, that like being like a more multidisciplinary person helps a lot and gives you so much like independence. Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, I like your journey attests to that.

Speaker A: So thanks so much for.

Speaker B: All right, Pedro. Well, thank you so much for sharing, you know, your brain on the chat. It's been, it's been a pleasure to listen and so thank you so much for, for coming on.

Speaker A: Uh, thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me. Of course.

Speaker B: And if you're listening, you want to, you know, follow Pedro's work or check out his, his stuff and his latest games or whatever. You can, uh, go to his website, which is saint11.org or look him up on social media and he's saint11 everywhere. And I'll post those links in the description of this chat. And thank you so much for listening. That's all for now. Okay, bye. Foreign. The music for this podcast was composed by Willem Mando and the graphics by Luhan Wang. I encourage you to look them up if you've enjoyed their work.