DOTPX

The itty bit pixel art magazine

2018

$9.99
 Dotpx In this issue...

8 Bit
4
Letter from
the Editor

64 Bit
6 8
A Throwback
Happy Trees! Art Tutorial Stardew Valley Harvest Moon

32 Bit

42 20
George Seurat Pixels in History Pixels in Real Life Hunting Space
Invaders Graffiti

46 26
What to keep Recommendations Pixel Art collection Fantastic Art
your eye on from Marvelous
Artists

48
Find out Next Art Prompt
Week’s Theme! Results
 DOTPX
Editor in Chief
Jaxoline

Managing Editor  Design Director   Creative Director

Now
Caroline Jaclyn Lynda
Pars Wythe Murphy

Editorial Available
on Steam
Wyatt Dawson Fredrick Newman
Natalia Frelsi Bert Purcel
Gail Molin Ezekiel Smith

Staff Writers
Piper Donalds Kathryn Gret
Christine Estima Bill Grossman
Jeffrey Ross

Design
Mora Anderson Harold Eastman
Belle Cuinn Sam Samuels
Lazarus Vitorio

Contributing Artists
Daydreamers-Art Mattfrith
Ekvitki Mazon
Forheksed Pixelartinc
Kidpx Silkpixel
Julia “Ilikebits” Doe Usualmanu
Vintagemau
Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

Between every pica on your screen there is a world which hosts a plethora
of pixels. These little itty bits are the foundation of technology and the guides to
endless digital creativity. Whether you are coding, manipulting, or drawings there will
be a cluster of pixels behind every project.

Here at DOTPX, we hope to bring inspiration, passion, and joy through our love of pix-
els. Through the 2018 issue, one of our firsts issues. We are sincerely grateful for all of
those who have stuck along for the ride, and will continue to do so in the upcoming
years. We hope to one day have this magazine available for seasonal issues to
give our readers pixel news in any type of weather.

We are sincerely thankful at the DOTPX team. We hope that you enjoy
the spreads of pixel art, our latest pixel gaming reviews, the fun pixel
prompts, and so much more!

Enjoy,

Jaxoline
 Pixel Art Tutorial: Happy Trees
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Step 5: Shading and Highlighting (Branches)
Jeffrey Ross Focus on the branches of the tree first. Begin adding your shading color, then finish by adding
your highlight color.

8 Step 1: Shapes 9
Let’s start with our basic shapes: triangle and cylinder (or rectangle).

Step 6: Shading and Highlighting (Tree trunk)

Step 2: Detail (around edges) Now the same with the tree trunk; add your shading color, then
Next, add detail to your shape around the edges. add your highlight color.

Step 3: (Detail inside shape)

Then add some detail inside of the shapes.
Step 7:
Before you finish your work, remember to add shadow. Since our light
source is coming from the top, the tree branches will cast a shadow
on the tree trunk. Add your shadow and you’re done!

Step 4: Main Colors

Fill-in your main colors.
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A harvest moon throwback...

Kathryn Gret

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As a little kid, I was drawn to the allure of living a
different life through video games. I would spend
my hours after school exploring the small grassy
towns in Role Playing Games (RPGs), battling
monsters to save the townspeople, or even just,
well, farming. You would think that a video game
solely marketed as a slice of life game about farm-
ing and finding true love wouldn’t appeal to kids,
but it did. The Harvest Moon series was created
by Marvelous and Natsume and placed on con-
soles such as the Gamecube, the PS2, the Wii, the
DS, and so forth. This simplistic style game was
chock full of cutesy animals and fun simple-town
life, but as the series expanded the classic charm
of Harvest Moon began to vanish.
That’s where Stardew Valley comes in. Stardew
Valley was made by Concerned Ape and came
Good people
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out in February 2016, when no more Harvest want out. This yet again takes a
to know in
Moon games were being made. At the time, the throwback to older Harvest Moon Pelican Town
creative staff of Harvest Moon actually all packed games but also expands on it by
their bags from Natsume and Marvelous to move actually showing the gamer the ter-
to their own company X-Seed. From roughly 2012 rible work you left to pursue farm- 13
until late 2016 there were no Harvest Moon games ing. What’s even better is that your
as the creative team no longer owned their own terrible ethically unsound office job
series. The creative team now creates Story of stays in the game as a major trope.
Seasons, which is essentially Harvest Moon with the only one left to take over the Yes, somehow even in a cute little pixel game you D.O.B Spring 7
a twist of fantasy. farm. Many of these games really cannot escape that terrible mega-corporation Fav Items:
Autumn’s
While I love all things Story of Seasons and Har- don’t go into the nitty gritty on that is draining the world dry. Bounty
vest Moon, there’s a certain charm to Stardew that specific point. Stardew Val- Glazed Yams
Hot Pepper
Valley that drags me into the game faster. I can’t ley shows your grandfather as Vegetable
exactly put my finger on it; it could be the cute he writes a letter to you on his Medley
Find: Varies
pixel style, the hundreds of character creation deathbed which not onl actually @ Around Town
options, the ability to marry bachelors or bache- shows you one of your relatives,
lorettes, or even just the strong moral code sccat- but the scene then immediately
tered within the story. Stardew Valley for me was transitions to you living your
chock full of fun adventures that left me playing worst life in a Joja corp cubicle.
the game until 4am when I couldn’t sleep from jet Joja Corp is essentially a ter-
lag or too much caffiene. rible capitalistic company
The game starts off with your grandfather on his that works its employees to
deathbed. That’s, well, not really a cheerful way to death literally. You cubicle
start a game, but this trope definitely falls back on neighbor is a skeleton, long
older Harvest Moon games. In A Wonderful Life, forgotten and never given a
Friends of Mineral Town, Harvest Moon N64, and proper burial because they
Back to Nature use the prompt of recieving your were stuck working at Joja
farm from a dying family member is present. Nor- corp. You, the protagonist,
mally this trope is used through a letter given to the are tired and done with your
“cityslicker” protagonist (you) because you may be dingey gray cublice, and you
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But thankfully you
have the option to
destroy Joja Corp in
Stardew Valley, which
14 is something you
can’t do in any Har-
D.O.B Fall 21
Fav Items: vest Moon game. You
Goat Cheese arrive in Pelican Town
Peach
Spaghetti to start your farming
Find: 9am - 5pm adventure only to find
@ Carpenter
Store except for out that 1 - Joja Corp exists even
Tuesdays here, and 2 - your grandfather left
the farm a ruined mess. It’s now
up to you to make the farm a prof-
itable piece of land again. Which,
this could be an extremely hard or
insanely easy task depending on
what type of farm you chose during
character creation and how well
you know Harvest Moon
games. Within the char-
acter creation box, you
have the option for basic,
river, forest, mountain,
and wilderness farms.
With the easiest farm
being basic and the
hardest farm being wil-
derness which is full of
monsters.
Stardew Valley follows the basic farming set
up as any Harvest Moon game. The best way to
plant your crops is in a 3 by 3 grid to potentially
get a super crop. Crops also come in quality levels
of normal, gold, and silver, with purple star being
worth the most which can be obtained through
the use of fertilizer. You are also given the stan-
dard tools of a sickle, hoe, watering can, pickaxe,
axe, and a fishing rod. All of these tools can be
upgraded at the blacksmith to make your farm-
ing life easier and make you character better at
earning more profits faster. What’s even better
with Stardew Valley is that you are also given a
sword. Yes, not only does Stardew Valley provide
the player with a simplistic farming life but also
an intense adventure spulunking through mines
full of monters. Harvest Moon: DS attempted to
do this mosnter set up, but was unable to achieve
the charm and thrill that Stardew Valley’s mines
were able to create. In my own opinion, I believe
this is because of the mulitudes of environments
crammed between every ten floors of the mines
that builds an adventurous atmosphere for the
player. In Harvest Moon: DS nothing in the mines
really changed despite there being over 100 levels.
Eventually, going back to the start of the game,
you arrive in Pelican town. You get to meet the
entire thirty person village within the first week.
Two of the most important people you see are
Robin the town’s carpenter, and Lewis, the town’s
mayor.
Usually within most Harvest Moon games, the
carpenter is portrayed as a big buff burly man,
so when the player immediately meets a strong
female carpenter it becomes a nice refreshing
change between the games. Lewis, however, falls
into the same nostalgic throwback to Harvest
Moon games with his good, kind-hearted nature,
moustache, and fun hat that every mayor in Har-
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vest Moon seemed to wear.
Besides Robin and Lewis, there
are a plethora of characters that
exist within this world that play
between the borders of nostal- 15
gia and going against the game
D.O.B Spring 26
genre’s stereotype. One of my Fav Items:
favorite quirks that Concerned Fried Calamari
Find: 9am - 5pm
Ape continued to keep from @ Pierre’s
Harvest Moon into Stardew Val- General Store
except on
ley is the element of the mysti- Wednesdays
cal. Within most Harvest Moon
games there is the Harvest
Goddess, Harvest Sprites, and
even some witches and wizards
thrown in. In Stardew Valley, we
have the junimos, the wizard, a
witch, and some talking animals
that sell hats. What’s not to love?
The magic in this game espe-
cially works well to take an great
part of an old series and flesh it out
more to have greater meaning. As
a little kid I loved having to save
the Harvest Goddess or throwing
cucumbers into the special lake
to attract a Kappa. But other than
their existence, they never really
heavily impacted the game other
than to give a goal to the player.
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With the junimos, the player has two options.
You either get to help save this little apple-shaped
creatures and restore the old recreational building,
or you can completely ignore them and shell out all
16 of your money to Joja corp and destory the essence
of nature. It’s your choice. Personally, I always feel
D.O.B Summer 19
Fav Items: better helping out the junimos and bringing peace
Bean Hotpot to Pelican Town over destroying it to capitalism, but
Ice Cream
Rice Pudding yet again it’s up to the player to decide what to do
Strawberry with their save file.
Find: Varies
@ Labratory or Another great feature in this game that returns
Outside is the color system that lets you know how in love
each potential partner is with you. Like the mea-
surement of product quality in farming, purple star
is the highest form that a character can achieve
which only one person can get after you marry
them. Besides that the colors start with black, and
then go blue, green, yellow, orange, and then red.
There is also a brand new trait incorportated into
the marriage system. In Stardew Valley, you are able
to marry any potential marriage candidate that you
want. You can be gay in this game, and it’s great.
Unfortunately, Stardew Valley continued to dis-
play the lack of diversity that every Harvest Moon
game had. Maru is the only POC marriage candi-
date, and only one of two POC characters. This is
something that I hope Concerned Ape would fix in
a later DLC of the game, or even could be some-
thing for a future Stardew Valley game if he makes a
sequel. Maru is a really sweet character and so is her
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father Demetrius. I just wish that
despite all of the fun mystical and
colorful fantasy elements within
the game, that the cast of char-
acters itself could be more color- 17
ful to further propel the game to
D.O.B Summer 24
be greater. It’s a shame to me, as Fav Items:
with every Harvest Moon game Catfish
Diamond
as a child it was almost a joke to Iridium Bar
be able to point out the one and Mead
Octopus
only POC character placed into Pumpkin
the game so that Marvelous did Sea Cucumber
Sturgeon
not seem too racist as they hit Find: 9am - 5pm
their “quota”. @ Fish Store
except for Sunny
And there is hope for more Saturdays
expansion to this game, as not
only did Concerned Ape make
Shane and Emily marriage candi-
dates in an updated patch of the
game, but a co-op multiplayer
version of the game was also
released recently. With multi-
player, the player can now build a
farm with up to four other friends.
This mode of the game is essen-
tially a dream come true for me
as it has now created a way for
me to play the same game at the
same time with my sister and my
close friends.
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18 19

D.O.B Winter 17
Fav Items:
Purple Mush-
room,
Solar Essence,
Super Cucum-
ber,
Void Essence
By adding multiplayer, there is also now the new Find: 6am - 11pm
6 Guys. 6 Girls. @ Wizard’s
challenge of multiple people sharing one wallet
12 paths Tower
of money while also having many hands to multi-
to happiness.
task and bring in more profit. You would think that
with multiple hands that making money would be
a breeze, but somehow you still end up with finan-
Who will you date?
cial difficulties. For example in my multiplayer game
with my roommate not only did I pass out in the
mines multiple times and cost us over 1000g, I
also spent so much time taking screenshots and
watching cutscenes that I did basically nothing
for most of the game days as within multiplayer
mode the clock will keep ticking even when you
have your game paused, which makes the players
have to value every second of their game days even
more. Adding another person to your game defi-
nitely gives more room for more fun, but also more
strategy to make the best farm that you can!
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20
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Hunting Space Invaders Graffiti
Christine Estima
22 23
I had been living in London for years, and in thinking
of myself as a Londoner, I had already grown tired of
her charms. In a city that has been the focal point of
every modern western historical incident from Wel-
lington and Nelson to William Wallace, and where
every great mind from Shakespeare to Sherlock has
lived, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by it all. So
easy, that instead of exploring Temple church to see
the Knights Templar effigies, or visiting the birth-
homes of Charlie Chaplin and Charles Dickens, I
often opted to spend my nights in, eating Pret-
A-Manger sandwiches and watching Eastenders,
waiting for my death.
My only joy came on the weekends when I would
explore Shoreditch and Hackney for street art and
graffiti murals, which I’ve always enjoyed—and for a
time I ran a small street art blog that catalogued all
the urban art that crossed my path. That meant I
was somewhat in the loop when, in 2014, I caught
wind of a new, free street art app that turned
“graff-hunting” (as I call it) into a real-life video
game. It was called Flash Invaders and it centered
on the Parisian street artist Space Invader.
For fans of the 2009 Banksy documentary Exit
Through The Gift Shop, you might remember Space
Invader as the cousin of protagonist Mr Brain-
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24
wash. Using bathroom tiles and a lot of epoxy resin,
Space Invader creates small mosaics in the image
of the Space Invader aliens from the eponymous
1980s video arcade game. He places them on walls,
bridges, overpasses and ledges all around the world.
I had hunted and photographed his work before, as
he’s left his mark in major cities all around the world
like New York, Miami, Hong Kong, Kathmandu, Paris,
Amsterdam, and many more. But this new app took
the act of graff-hunting and turned it into a game of
points and high scores, much like Pokemon Go, but
predating it by two years. And also, not lame as fuck.
London was suddenly new and exciting again, and
the familiar streets I thought I knew inside and out
became strange. I had to look at them with new eyes,
because now I was scouring every nook and cranny
for Space Invaders.
As soon as I would stumble upon a ‘Vader in Soho
or Finsbury Park or Old Street, I would whip out my
device and take a picture, or “flash” the piece with
the app. (It wouldn’t allow you to use photographs
from your camera roll, to prevent
cheating.) The app uses your GPS
location and the image provided
and cross-references it against the
large databank of “activated” ‘Vad-
ers around the world. And if there’s a
match, your device makes this “dun-
dun-TAH-DAH!” video arcade midi-
type chime and your screen flashes
with how many every street that I’d
walked down a hundred times with
fresh new eyes, like a modern day
flâneur. Every world-weary Lon-
doner is sick of Westminster Bridge
and the London Eye. But recently
I actually headed straight for that
area and elbowed past throngs of
gaudy American tourists with their
fanny packs and selfie sticks just
because the blogs reported a new
‘Vader had been erected on the
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25
south embankment. Sure the area is a tourist trap,
but I have to admit, the view of a ‘Vader overlooking
Big Ben and the houses of Parliament to the north
at dusk is quite the beautiful sight. It also took me
to areas of London I had never seen before and
would never have had the impetus to visit other-
wise. London is just such a sprawling metropolis,
if you live in Tooting Broadway, you would have no
reason whatsoever to visit Ladbroke Grove, which is
on the other side of the city and a two-hour tube-
ride away. ‘Vader became that reason for me.
Hunting ‘Vaders along Rivington Street in
Shoreditch led me to discover murals by Thierry Noir,
the French artist who famous painted the Berlin Wall
during the height of the Iron Curtain. Because of
‘Vaders, I discovered everything from the colourful
Brixton Market, to the popular blue door featured
in the Hugh Grant-Julia Roberts rom com Notting
“Space Invader creates small
Hill, to the rooftop on Savile Row where The Beatles
mosaics in the image of the Space
infamously performed their final public concert.
Invader aliens from the epony-
Furthermore, it connected me to a large
mous 1980s video arcade game.”
graff-hunting community that was more than will-
ing to share tips, maps, and locations. I would run
into many fellow ‘Vader flashers on the street, easily
identifiable by their devices pointed skyward, trying
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to zoom in on small mosaic tiles. But like most 21st
century interactions, most of my connections came
from the internet. ‘Vader hunters run huge Insta-
gram accounts and post their finds using hashtags
26 like #invaderlondon #invaderwashere and #Space- 27
InvaderLondon.
In fact, some Instagram groups, like the #reactiva-
tionteamUK and @spacerescue_intl have become
so popular, they decided to make it their mission
to “reactivate” some of the “deactivated” ‘Vaders,
and even managed to get the elusive artist Space
Invader himself to collab. Once these groups have
remade the old, damaged, or destroyed ‘Vaders,
and placed them back in their original locations,
Space Invader himself will make sure those pieces
are once again “flashable” on the app. It’s a huge
network of people who do all of this for free, just
because they enjoy public, urban art and they want
to share in the joy. And as luck would have it, they’ve
shared it with me.
I’m returning to London this holiday season and
have already begun planning which coveted ‘Vaders
I want to find and which other hunters I want to
collab with whilst there. Three years later, the game
still excites me because the scavenger hunt has
become addictive. As long as ‘Vader continues his
‘invasions,’ there will always be new pieces to find,
new areas to explore, and new art to admire.
 Dotastic Art
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from Marvelous
28
Pixel Artists 29

Piper Donalds

Looking for some fun art? Well look no further.

DOTPX, the little itty-bit magazine has provided
some of our favorite pixel art to share with our
readers. We went around the pixel-net looking
to aquire some beautiful work to place inside
DOTPX. Each piece was created by an extremely
talented artist who specializes in pixel art. We
were pthrilled to recieve these pieces from all
of these artists, and some of them even gave us
two. We hope that these pixel pieces inspire you
to create your own art or to continue to support
the pixel art community. Curious to see more of
their work? Below we have provided each image’s
artist for your pixel purusing convenience.

In order:

Ekvitki Pixelartinc
Silkpixel Mazon
Mattfrith Usualmanu
Vintagemau Pixelartinc
Kidpxl Daydreamer’s art
Forheksed
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30
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32
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34
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36
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38
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 Pixels in History:
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George Seurat and Pointilism
Bill Grossman

44 45

Port-en-Bessin, the
Semaphore and Cliffs
Georges Seurat -1888

Georges Seurat (1859-1891) was born into a very rich family in Paris.
His father, Antoine Chrysostom Seurat, was a legal official and a native
of Champagne; his mother, Ernestine Faivre, was Parisian. Georges
Seurat first studied art with Justin Lequiene, a sculptor. Seurat
attended theEcole des Beaux-Arts in 1878 and 1879. After a year of
service at Brest military academy, he returned to Paris in 1880. He
shared a small studio on the Left Bank with two student friends before
moving to a studio of his own. For the next two years he devoted him-
self to mastering the art of black and white drawing. He spent 1883
on his first major painting - a huge canvas titled Bathers at Asnieres.
After his painting was rejected by the Paris Salon, Seurat turned
away from such establishments, instead allying himself with the inde-
pendent artists of Paris. In 1884 he and other artists (including Max-
imilien Luce) formed the Societe des Artistes Independants. There he
met and befriended fellow artist Paul Signac. Seurat shared his new
ideas about pointillism with Signac, who subsequently painted in the
same idiom. In the summer of 1884 Seurat began work on his master-
piece, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which took
him two years to complete.
Pixel art of Georges Seurat
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46 47

Now available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch,

and Steam...
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What to keep your eye on...
Piper Donalds
48 49

There is a certain pixel artist mak-

ing a scene in the pixel art com-
munity. Her name is Jubilee and
she goes by 8pxl online. She can
be found on Tumblr, Instagram,
Twitter, Society6, and so many
more places.
What makes 8pxl special? While
she has over 1,000 pixel pieces in
her Society6 store, she also has
plenty of pixel perfect tutorials
on her social media pages. In
fact one of her tutorials was so
popular on tumblr that it started
a chain of pixel art.
The tutorial was title Simple
Tutorial and taught people how
to make pixel landscapes inside
of a circle to be used as designs
for clocks, coasters, and so much

credits clockwise: skylarliuart, heydragonfly,

more.

cutlaska, krissmass-eve, littlexdetours

 A Do you have a favorite color?, or is
there a color that always catches
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your eye? This issue’s art prompt for

R
Dotpx wants you to focus on that
color!
Take a color palette with similar
colors and create a landscape with

T
50 them. The landscape can be any-
thing so long as it is using only the
selective colors within your palette.
Remember to submit your finished
prompt to Dotpx.Submittable.com
for a chance to have your art in our
next issue!

P
R
O
M
P Here are our tops picks from last

T
issue’s prompt What is your favor-
ite room in your house.
clockwise: “House” Orion R: MA, “TV
Room” Rachel G: FL, “Fishtank” Lacy M:
CA, “Bathroom” Anne D: NJ, “Study” Mai
J: OR “Office”, Dale A: TX
Artist 8PXL featured inside...

cover art by Julia Doe