Preface Pixel Art Project; the IC-Project

Late in 2005, I came up with the idea of making a really large, hand-drawn, pixel art illustration.
After drawing a lot of pixel art puppets, I got the drift of it, what to do, and what not. Although it was nice to draw a new one every once a while, this was also the right moment to start something really new, something big, something really different: the IC-Project.

The IC-Project is my own personal project, not an assignment.
I worked on the pixel art illustration in my spare time over a period of one and a half years. The final illustration took me around 560 hours of pixel pushing.

The whole project involved all kinds of techniques; a lot of pixel pushing, solving a lot of visual and technical problems, programming, sketching, visual research, and writing this tutorial.

In retrospect, the whole project was a big quality trip; I enjoyed every moment of it, the tranquility of pixel pushing - lots of flow, the programming, the research, the frequent problem solving, etc.

I am really proud to present the final pixel art illustration, as well as all the steps towards it, which I consider - for the moment - to be my personal pixel art masterpiece.

I hope you enjoy the pixel art illustration and these pages, as much as I did while working on them.

Arjan Westerdiep
www.drububu.com