Swipe through to see each step, with a bit of explanation too on my thought process. I hope this inspires you to make your own pixel art, and if you want to have your own pixel art created into diamond paintings, just message me on my Instagram or FaceBook and I’ll chat with you on my process!

I usually start out at a larger size, and slowly scale it down and redraw it each time it gets smaller. This allows me to keep the elements in place, but also acknowledge how much detail can realistically work at the small size for diamond art. This is important to figure out shadows and highlights early on, too.

Once I have a sketch I like, at the correct size, I do one final clean outline pass. Having a good, crisp border is really vital to good pixel art, and is one of the easiest ways to know if something is just AI dropped into a program, or actual art with intention.

Color palettes are tricky, but I’ve started to get a handle on them. I’ve built all of the DMC colors into palettes in Procreate for reference, since diamond drill colors are based on those. It was a beast to do, but worth it!

Finding the colors is really vital. They can’t be too close to each other, but then again they can’t be too bright or dark too quickly. I aim for at least 2 lighter colors, the “main” mid color, and then 2-3 dark shades.

I recommend working with just one color for one element on it’s own layer – you can merge them down after a while if you really want to, but having them all separate allows you to quickly change the color if you find something is off.

So for this, I have each shadow and highlight for the hat on it’s own layer.

“Dithering” is kind of like creating little droplets of the adjacent colors to create a gradient without adding more colors.

I love being able to set symmetry for designs, because otherwise it’s really annoying to have to draw it twice, or copy/paste every time.

So backgrounds are the bane of my existence. It’s kind of why I love doing this space and galaxy burst backgrounds.

I created a custom brush that does a little scatter of 1 pixel dot that allows me to easily blend from one color to the next, creating this starry glow. It took a long time to get it right, but it’s a great help!

Also, I love drawing star bursts. Like too much.

I use a cross stitch program on my iPad to quickly check how it would look in DMC colors, and to make sure my palette is blending how I like.

DMC are embroidery thread colors that are standardized, and are the same standardized colors that are those numbers for the drill colors when you order a kit. While the software doesn’t let me declare things as glittery or ab or glow in the dark, it gives me a good idea of how it’ll come out. I check this kind of generation regularly as I’m designing, not just at the end.

Then I take the pixel art to my laptop, import it into an advanced cross stitch program, and fine tune it and pick the drill colors, clean it up manually, and get it ready in a format my kit creator can use!

Oh, and I have a huge set of color swatches of drills so I can check the color I am assigning to the drill in reality to make sure it looks how I want it to when you ultimately create it. I’ll snap a pic the next time I have them all laid out on my table, trying to pick the best colors lol

It’s a huge process, sure, but it’s really worth it for the final design.

This one is based on Rosie the Riveter and the famous poster of her. Except this time, it’s Samus Aran in her Zero Suit, ready to take out some aliens! Because women get it done.

I thought the headband and pose would work great, and since Rosie is in blue overalls and Samus’s Zero Suit is blue, it just logically worked.

This was also a chance for me to order a sample to test some more special drills, to check on their quality and see how they held up. I was not disappointed!

This one features glowing diamonds (mostly for the metroids), crystal in the gun, and metal-like ones throughout. They’re all fantastic and I’m so glad I decided to use them with this design, I could not have picked a better design to try them on.

Here are some of my in progress shots of making my own of this design.

So much glowing. So many sparkles. It makes me so happy!

I love mejiro. They’re also known as the “Japanese White-Eye.” They’re these cute little chonky bright green birds that are a joy to see in the bamboo fields where they tend to live. Or in spring, they often perch on flowering trees like plums and cherry blossoms. They’re also the “state bird” of the Prefecture I live in, Oita. We have lived here for over a decade now, and these little guys, while rare in our fishing village, are just so cute to see (and hear) hopping around. They usually come in flocks, too, which is a treat!

So in honor of starting this new way of creating art, it seemed fitting.

The entire collection of “crossroads” art are also something I love. In every place you visit in Japan, if you look down, you’ll see something wonderful on occasion… the sewer caps! No joke, they’re really amazing, and everywhere has their own. They feature history, landmarks, animals, and characters the place is known for. Heck, even some tiny villages that you wouldn’t even think to check have their own! There is so much pride in your hometowns here, especially in the rural countrysides, that it’s a neat view into the place you’re walking around… but you have to remember to look down.

This one, with the mejiro, are from a small town in Oita, in the Nakatsu area, called Sanko-mura. It was one of our first “trips” outside of Nakatsu when we first moved to Japan, to visit some of the smaller places, and Sanko was one of the first because a friend lived there. It was where I really realized that each place has their own caps, and turned me into an avid hunter of them wherever we go. I might not live within a stone’s throw of Sanko any more, but still being in Oita both the town and the birds live close to my heart, and to me, they mean new starts.

I hope that this inspires you, too, into supporting this new thing. I know it’s hard to trust just some random website online, but know that I am a real human, an artist who thought they would only be in Japan for a year and a half in 2012, who still lives here with my husband and kitties. All of my work is original and hand-drawn, no AI here, so if you feel like supporting an independent artist, please consider it. We all truly appreciate you!

Oh, and the Japanese at the bottom of the diamond painting version says “日本へようこそ” (nee-hon eh yoh-koh-soh) which means “Welcome to Japan” which seems fitting.