Process of illustration: Creating 8-bit style pixel art

This post will show the steps and how you can easily create pixel art on adobe Illustrator like I have for my (pretty) banner.





First things first, why Illustrator not Photoshop?

Well, one, when creating artwork on illustrator you are creating vector art.... which means you can scale an image as much as you like without losing quality.

And... two, Illustrator has better tools for creating pictures than photoshop. Oh, yeah, did I mension it's all in vectors?.. yeah. I did.


Okay, step 1, open up Illustrator - any page size.
star by making a grid using the very creatively named 'Rectangular grid tool' (for now I'll call it the RGT, icon shown below).You can double click on the RGT to set the amount of squares you want as the default is 5x5. Draw out the grid while holding down shift to keep the boxes in proportion.

Next, you'll want to make the grid a Live Paint Area. This means you can fill it in paint bucket style - and easily. To make the grid a live paint area, click on the icon shown below, it's imaginatively called the live paint bucket. Click on the grid (which should be red as you hover over it) using the live paint bucket and it should now be a live paint area.

Next, using the same live paint bucket tool, pick a colour, and start filling in the sqaures (or pixels) of your choice. If you make a mistake press Ctrl+Z to step backwards- fairly similiar to Photoshop.

Here's a finished piece I made : 

There's still more, you need to make sure that ALL squares in the image are filled in. Even the white ones or else this happens:

When you place something on the bottom layers, It shows through. Fill the squares white and......

..........Problem solved.

....and sometime later using other useful tools on Illustrator such as the perspective grid tool and what not.. 

DONE.