No more buying assets? I let AI make a pixel character that walks and runs
This time I made a pixel art character that walks and runs
Plus the buildings and props of the village it lives in
Last episode I handed 50 icons to an AI team
Back then I said I'd keep using bought art for characters and backgrounds
But once the icons worked, I got greedy
If AI can make characters and buildings too, do I even need to buy assets?
LV.1A paper-doll character
Make it like a paper doll so I can change clothes
I'll draw it in 6 stacked layers: body, pants, boots, shirt, apron and hair
The front walk was done faster than I expected
I'm color-weak, so I added a rule to tell colors apart by brightness instead of hue
LV.2800 objects while I slept
Don't wait for my OK, keep making objects until 9am
I'll go props, tiles, icons, then effects, and have a list and mockups ready for the morning
Woke up to about 800 images: tiles, props, icons, weather, even festival stuff
The AI worked all night and I just slept
LV.3The buildings look like toys
The building shapes are way too simple
I'll make the roof tiles flow like scales, curve the eaves outward, thicken the timber frame, and add shadows and stains to the walls
Left is the first try, right is the third
What looked like LEGO finally started to look like a house
I ran three AIs at once and rebuilt all 10
LV.4Side walk, where a whole day went
Why does ours look like 3 frames?
I'll count how different the silhouettes are between opposite frames
Limping → skating → horse hooves → duck feet
It was looping the same 3 frames twice, just with colors swapped
After that, it was feet, feet, feet
The feet look like sticks
The lifted foot and planted foot are different thicknesses
The toes should lift
That's not a foot, it looks like it's riding something
One foot ate a whole morning
LV.5In the end, I opened Aseprite myself
Never mind, I'll do it
I'll open the current version in Aseprite. Once you save, I'll take it from there
Moved a few pixels and it got way better
The AI found the last bit of limping: the left foot floated 1 pixel up only when it was the planted foot
It was walking like someone whose left leg was 1 pixel short
LV.6For the run, I drew the skeleton myself
Every run it drew had stick legs
Seriously, isn't this too much?? Spent 3 hours on this alone
What if I draw a skeleton, we transplant the arms, body and legs to our proportions, and then add the body on top?
Sounds good. I'll set up a layer in Aseprite for the skeleton and read the bends as joints
A few lines, and it worked in one go
3 hours of failing, solved with 10 lines
Last, the frames where the head leaned too far forward: I just sent screenshots with "move the head back one pixel in these two frames"
Showing a screenshot beats explaining it in words, every time
Today's result
Level 6 in two days
A paper-doll character, 10 buildings, 800 objects
I never thought AI could do pixel art, and now I'm almost at the point where I don't need to buy assets
Buying never ends! AI, two days! But one foot took a whole morning!
Curious what AI-made pixel art looks like? Grab it
Free, even for commercial use. A credit would be appreciated
Download the pixel-forge Village Pack
