Underrated Pixel Artist.
named Brandon James Greer.
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THE MODERN HIDALGO: Entry_100.
Written: Thursday. May 21, 2020.
We’re at the end of the line with this journal entry…at least for this one season.
Season 2 will come next. I think I named it Inner Machinations a little while back. I might still name it that way, I don’t really have any other name in mind that would fit that next journal season.
*My favorite song to listen to right now is Trouble by Cage the Elephant. It was a song that was used in Riverdale’s 2nd episode of Season 1. I kinda forgot about that song, until I heard it again in that episode. Now I’ve listened to it almost everyday since. I also listen to Cage the Elephant’s other songs. They’ve got cool songs, apparently. I’ve only just noticed that recently, too.*
I’ve been doing a lot of pixel art these past few days or weeks, I don’t know how long it’s been. I’ve just been at it like almost 24/7. I don’t know how it came to be, but I think that my gateway to it was this one pixel artist named Brandon James Greer. I saw his IG account one day (cause I was looking for pixel art on the discovery section), and I saw his post saying he has a Youtube channel. I then looked at his channel, and watched a couple of his videos, and then I was hooked.
I think it was the day when I wasn’t actually using my laptop, and was seated on our desktop computer downstairs. It was probably boiling hot that day, that’s why I spent time browsing the internet on the desktop. I rarely do that these days, cause my laptop’s basically been my main computer, and I haven’t edited any new videos for my own channel lately.
So and so, I don’t really know what else to do on the desktop, besides browsing for random stuff on youtube or instagram. I did that, and somewhere along the way, I stumbled upon Brandon’s channel, and I guess that’s where it started.
It’s like I caught this fever — this disease. I’ve been making pixel art for days now, and when I’m not making pixel art, I’m looking at it. And when I’m not doing that, I’m thinking about it.
Especially during the first days of me noticing this art form in like a serious way. I’ve always been fascinated with the art form, but I didn’t really think much of it in terms of “Oh, I wanna do my own pixel art”, or shit like that. It was generally my familiarity to it from playing so many video games in my childhood. I still play a lot of retro GBA/GBC/GB games, I think even more so now, cause I’m treating it as like research.
I literally couldn’t stop looking at pixel art, cause whenever I did something else, my mind wanted to think about pixel art, and wanted to see these different available art styles when it came to pixel art.
I learned a lot with Brandon James Greer’s videos, I re-watch those a lot whenever I need guidance for some piece I’m trying to make, or just whenever I wanna be inspired in doing pixel art, I go to his channel for that.
I think the main reason why he’s so fun to watch is because of how polished and concise his videos are, and his pixel art. His work has its own style. Sure, there’re some that are inspired on other things, but he’s got a very solid foundation going for him right now. And the channel’s only been up for like 5–6 months. He’s posted I guess 20 or so videos. Every single one of those videos are high quality videos talking about tutorials or guides, or even just analysis of other existing pixel arts from various video games. It’s so educational while still maintaining that level of entertainment to it.
I think I’d never be able to stress enough how he’s brought this new passion to my life. I generally didn’t like art before seeing his stuff. I still think I don’t like art (the general look of art, I mean. The paint, the brushes, the hyper-realism or the expressionistic art, I don’t really resonate with it).
But Pixel Art sort of called out to me, in a way. It feels very familiar, like I’ve known this my whole life, but only now am I starting to really see it.
Also maybe because I know how to do it, and do it well enough, that I myself see that what I do turns out generally good in quality. And that says something. I didn’t like the general art (or fine arts) because I didn’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to work around it, or make things look the way I want it to look. But in pixel art, it almost always turns out the way I want it to look. Maybe because of its define…ness…? I don’t know what word best to describe that feeling. It’s very exact, it’s very concise and visually direct.
There goes the last entry for this season. I don’t know what will change for the next season. Probably nothing, really. I’d just be changing the name and look of it, and that’s it.
Other things: I’ve been slow on reading lately. It’s sort of a balancing effect. I spend so much time on pixel art, that I’ve reduced my reading amount to at least one chapter a day (which was previously 3 chapters at max). Not intentionally, of course. Though I would want to have both assets easily visited.
Honestly, doing anything else other than pixel art feels like a sin to me. My mind just works that way. I can’t watch a movie or series, or read a book, or world-build for a story, without thinking about pixel art and how long it would be for me to finish doing these other tasks so that I could get back to doing or looking at pixel art.
It’s a virus, I tell you. A parasite. Or maybe a symbiotic relation… I dunno.
