# Top-Down Pixel Art Resources

## Knowledge

### Top-down specifically (the core of this mission)

- [SLYNYRD — Pixelblog 20: Top Down Tiles](https://www.slynyrd.com/blog/2019/8/27/pixelblog-20-top-down-tiles)
  Raymond Schlitter's series is the single best free resource for exactly this mission:
  16×16 tiles in a 3/4 top-down projection. Covers cluster balance, texture density,
  mirroring, transition tiles. **Use for:** anything terrain or tileset.
- [SLYNYRD — Pixelblog 21: Top Down Objects](https://www.slynyrd.com/blog/2019/9/18/pixelblog-21-top-down-objects)
  Props and set dressing in the same projection. Establishes the "subtle, non-directional
  contact shadow" rule and the "keep objects on 16px increments" rule.
  **Use for:** props, rocks, barrels, graves.
- [SLYNYRD — Pixelblog 35: Top Down Interiors](https://www.slynyrd.com/blog/2021/11/30/pixelblog-35-top-down-interiors)
  Building interiors in the same projection — walls, floors, furniture.
  **Use for:** saloon, church, mine interiors.
- [SLYNYRD — Pixelblog index](https://www.slynyrd.com/pixelblog-directory)
  The rest of the series: palettes, projections, animation, characters.

### Fundamentals

- [Pedro Medeiros — "How to start making pixel art" (Pixel Grimoire)](https://medium.com/pixel-grimoire/how-to-start-making-pixel-art-2d1e31a5ceab)
  Multi-part beginner-to-intermediate series from the Celeste/Towerfall artist. Part 2 is
  clusters, part 5 is anti-aliasing and banding, part 6 is colour theory.
  **Use for:** pixel-level technique — jaggies, clusters, banding, AA.
- [Pedro Medeiros' tutorials, mirrored on Lospec](https://lospec.com/pixel-art-tutorials/author/pedro-medeiros)
  Same material as single-image cheat sheets. Faster to reference than the Medium posts.
- [Lospec Pixel Art Tutorials](https://lospec.com/pixel-art-tutorials)
  Large curated, tagged index. **Use for:** finding a focused tutorial on one technique.
- [Lospec — Pixel Art: Where to Start](https://lospec.com/articles/pixel-art-where-to-start/)
  Orientation piece: tools, communities, first steps.

### Colour and palettes

- [SLYNYRD — Pixelblog 1: Color Palettes](https://www.slynyrd.com/blog/2018/1/10/pixelblog-1-color-palettes)
  Ramp construction and hue shifting from the same author as the top-down series, so the
  advice composes with it. **Use for:** building the project palette.
- [Pedro Medeiros — Basic Color Theory](https://medium.com/pixel-grimoire/how-to-start-making-pixel-art-6-a74f562a4056)
  **Use for:** why hue-shifted ramps beat straight value ramps.
- [Lospec Palette List](https://lospec.com/palette-list)
  Thousands of community palettes, filterable by colour count. **Use for:** starting
  points and for studying how good limited palettes are structured. Filter by tag
  `desaturated` / by 8–16 colours for this project's bleached direction.

### Tool

- [Aseprite Docs](https://www.aseprite.org/docs/)
  Official manual. **Use for:** tilemap mode, slices, export, sprite sheets, shortcuts.
- [Aseprite Tutorial](https://www.aseprite.org/docs/tutorial/)
  Official getting-started path.

### Engine

- [GDQuest — Lighting with 2D normal maps (Godot)](https://www.gdquest.com/tutorial/godot/2d/lighting-with-normal-maps/)
  **Use for:** making sprites react to `Light2D`. Relevant later, for the occult
  light sources in a bleached-daylight scene.
- [Godot — 2D lights and shadows](https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/2d/2d_lights_and_shadows.html)
  Official docs on `Light2D`, `LightOccluder2D`, `CanvasModulate`.
  **Use for:** the ambient-tint and light-pool workflow.

### Art to study (CC0 — vendored into this workspace)

Used as the worked examples in the lessons. Both are public domain, both are
human-made, and both are 16×16 top-down. See `assets/examples/CREDITS.md`.

- [Ninja Adventure — Asset Pack, by Pixel-Boy & AAA](https://pixel-boy.itch.io/ninja-adventure-asset-pack)
  CC0. The clearest small examples anywhere of a top face and front face on one
  object with a real contact shadow. **Use for:** studying value ordering and
  proportion. Its crate and pot are the reference sprites in Lesson 1.
  Full source on [GitHub](https://github.com/pixel-boy/NinjaAdventure).
- [Kenney — Tiny Town](https://kenney.nl/assets/tiny-town)
  CC0. The most *readable* CC0 16×16 top-down art there is. **Use for:** seeing how
  the top-face-to-front-face ratio swings across differently-shaped objects.
  **Caveat:** deliberately flat — no light direction, no contact shadows. Useless
  for teaching shading, and the lessons say so.
- [Kenney — Roguelike/RPG pack](https://kenney.nl/assets/roguelike-rpg-pack)
  CC0, 1700+ tiles. Not vendored; worth browsing for prop ideas.

### Tone references (links only — these are copyrighted, go and look)

The example art above teaches the craft and is no use at all for mood. For that,
study shipped work:

- [Blood West](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1198090/Blood_West/) — occult
  weird-western. Not pixel art, but the definitive tone reference for this game.
- [Westerado: Double Barreled](https://store.steampowered.com/app/331420/Westerado_Double_Barreled/)
  — pixel-art western, and one of very few. Study its desert palettes.
- [Blasphemous](https://store.steampowered.com/app/774361/Blasphemous/) — the
  reference for oppressive, high-key, sun-blasted religious dread.
- [Lospec Palette List](https://lospec.com/palette-list) filtered to desaturated
  8–16 colour palettes — raw material for the bleached direction.

## Wisdom (Communities)

- [Lospec Discord](https://lospec.com/pixel-art-communities)
  Friendly, all skill levels, active feedback channels. **Use for:** first place to post a
  work-in-progress and get low-stakes critique. Best starting community.
- [Pixel Art Discord (PAD)](https://discord.com/invite/pixelart)
  The largest pixel art Discord. Challenges, critique channels.
  **Use for:** volume of eyes, weekly challenges to build habit.
- [Pixel Joint forums](https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=3)
  Old-guard community with a weekly challenge and a strong critique culture. Direct and
  can be blunt. **Use for:** when you want harsh, expert-level feedback — probably after
  a few months, not on week one.
- [r/PixelArt](https://reddit.com/r/PixelArt) and [r/gamedev](https://reddit.com/r/gamedev)
  Broad reach, lower signal per post. **Use for:** visibility, not for technique critique.

_No community preference stated yet — ask the user before leaning on this section._

## Gaps

Things this mission needs that no single strong resource has been found for yet:

- **Bleached / high-key horror palettes in pixel art.** Nearly every pixel art horror
  tutorial assumes darkness. Need sources on desaturation, value compression, and dread
  in bright light. May have to be assembled from film colour-grading references instead.
- **Western-specific pixel art reference.** No dedicated tutorial found. Likely needs to
  come from studying shipped work (e.g. *Westerado*, *Blood West*, *Gunslugs*) and from
  photo reference rather than tutorials.
- **Occult/supernatural motif design at 16×16.** Reading a sigil or apparition at this
  resolution is a hard constraint problem; no source found yet.