22 Pixel Artists Creating Beautiful Retro Masterpieces

For many geeks who grew up in the 80’s, seeing pixel art brings back nostalgic memories of playing games on the Atari 7800, Nintendo Entertainment System or the Sega Master System. A new breed of amazing pixel artists are tapping into this nostalgia and creating pixel artwork that celebrates the history of gaming and reminds fans of a simpler (arguably more awesome) time.

Creating beautiful pixel art is incredibly hard to do and takes great skill. Modern pixel artists love the fact that a limited color palette and small resolution forces them to think carefully about every artistic choice they make. It’s crazy to think that pixel art with 32 colors and a screen resolution of 256×240 was seriously advanced stuff in 1985!

Pixel art is generally split into two sub genres. Isometric pixel art is drawn to simulate 3D and differs from perspective drawing because the edge lines don’t converge to a vanishing point. Isometric pixel art is often used in games because it gives the illusion of 3D without needing a complex 3D engine. Non isometric pixel art is basically anything else and includes art drawn from the side, top or bottom views as well as actual perspective.

So, with that brief pixel art primer out of the way lets get to the artwork! All the pixel artists in this collection are absolutely incredible at what they do an we’re in complete awe of their skills.

Octavi Navarro

Octavi Navarro hails from Barcelona and he’s one of our favorite pixel artists in this collection. He creates pixel art under the name Pixels Huh and has been interested in the medium ever since his parents bought him a Commodore 64.

His work has been featured in heaps of magazines including Edge Magazine, Die Welt, How Design Magazine and Kill Screen and he’s worked with influential clients all over the world.

If all that isn’t enough, he also worked on Thimbleweed Park, the new point and click adventure game by Ron Gilbert. If you have even a passing interest in adventure games, go and play it immediately. It’s utterly awesome.

Gary J Lucken (Army of Trolls)

Army of trolls is the brainchild of Gary Lucken, an art director and pixel artist from the UK. He’s obsessed with old school 2D video games and Japanese toys and this really shines through in his beautiful pixel art style.

Gary has worked with many amazing clients including the BBC, Disney, Maker Studios and Sony as well as video game projects for Nintendo WiiU, Sony PSP, PS4, PSVR and PC.

eBoy

eBoy is a collective of pixel artists based in Berlin and Vancouver and founded in 1997 by Kai Vermehr, Steffen Sauerteig and Svend Smital. They create incredibly detailed and complex pixel art cityscapes for gallery display as well as selling their own range of posters, t-shirts and toys.

eBoy’s influences are mined from all kinds if pop culture references including video games, LEGO, toys and magazines. It can take up to 8 weeks to complete one of their massive artworks with all 3 members of the crew working on it.

Their unique style has earned them a cult following around the world and they’ve worked with some incredibly influential clients including Nike, Red Bull and Adobe.

Gustavo Viselner

A freelance illustrator, video game artist and pixel artist from Israel, Gustavo Viselner produces beautiful pixel art images that parody TV shows, movies and pop culture references. We’d be happy if every single one of of his images was turned into a point and click adventure game. Gustavo also sells his artwork as prints on Etsy.

Gerardo Quiroz (Kirozake)

Gerardo Quiroz, who goes by the handle Kirozake, is a pixel and digital artist from Peru. Not a huge amount is known about him publicly, but his pixel art is mainly themed around medieval settings, science fiction and fantasy. Kirozake is another artist who needs to have his work turned into old school adventure games.

If you want to further support Kirozake’s art he has a Patreon page.

Chern Fai Chow (Cocefi)

Chern Fai, who is better known as Cocefi online, is an illustrator and video game artist from Malaysia. He’s done a huge amount of freelance work and contributed to several commercial video game titles including the excellent Drawn to Life and Scribblenauts series.

Cocefi’s skill as an illustrator really sets him apart and he often uses illustration as the foundation for his amazing pixel art scenes. If you’re interested, you can learn more about his process on his website FAQ.

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson is an Australian pixel artist and animator who’s worked on all kinds of video game, film and TV projects including Scott Pilgrim, Gravity Falls, The Simpsons, Mercenary Kings, Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 and Kings of Power.

He has a cute and trippy style but his work also ranges into the realm of nightmarish fever dream – in the best possible way. Paul also has a Patreon page if you’d like to further support his beautiful art.

Valeriya Sanchillo (Wanella)

Valeriya Sanchillo, who is far better known online as Wanella, is a brilliant pixel artist who focuses on moody, atmospheric background scenes. It’s easy to get lost for hours in the detail and beauty of her incredible images.

Her work often focuses on urban scenes as well as sci-fi and fantasy settings and every single piece is visually stunning. Visit Waneela’s Patreon page if you want to show some extra support for this incredible artist.

Yuriy Gusev (Fool)

Yuriy Gusev (better known as Fool) is originally from Russia and currently lives in the U.S. Fool is known for highly detailed pixel art and his images truly are amazing. The more you look at Fool’s images the more intricate and tiny details you’ll notice.

Pixel Jeff

Pixel Jeff is a freelance pixel artist from Taiwan. His work ranges from movie parody to beautiful pixel art scenes of everyday life and his entire portfolio is so much fun to explore.

Dušan Čežek

Dušan Čežek is a pixel artist from the Czech Republic. He founded design firm Fuches+Dachs with his wife Sanja. They work with clients in all kinds of creative domains including game art and development, UX / UI design, web design and toy design projects.

As a pixel artist, Dušan’s style is super minimal and his awesome movie characters have a huge amount of personality. You can also check out his designs on t-shirts that he sells at designbyhumans.

Joojaebum

Joojaebum is an amazing pixel artist from South Korea. His pixel art spans all kinds of genres including video game art, reproductions of impressionist paintings, Premier Football characters and traditional Korean art. His series called ‘Universe‘ is absolutely stunning.

Junkboy

Junkboy is an illustrator and graphic designer working out of Stockholm, Sweden. By day he’s Art Director at Mojang, the video game studio responsible for a little game you might have heard of called Minecraft.

His personal work shows incredible artistic range and his 80’s style video game pixel art is seriously cool.

Thomas Feichtmeir (Cyangmou)

Thomas Feichtmeir goes by the name online handle Cyangmou and is based in Austria. In addition to designing awesome pixel art for side scrolling video games, he also creates innovative tutorials to help others improve their skills and sells pixel art asset packs on his store.

Roman Gonzo

Based in the Ukraine, Roman Gonzo is a pixel artist, animator and indie game developer who focuses mainly on video game and movie art. His Avengers series is a highlight of his portfolio.

Simon Stafsnes Andersen (Snake / Imson)

Simon Andersen is an illustrator from Norway and is more commonly known online as Snake or Imson. He’s most well known as the creator of the platforming adventure game Owlboy which was developed at his game studio D-Pad. Pixel art isn’t Simon’s primary style but the pieces he has created are fantastic.

AlbertoV

Alberto is a game developer and pixel artist who hails from Spain. He grew up in the 90’s loving 16-bit console video games on the SNES, Mega Drive and Arcade cabinets. His personal pixel art serves as inspiration for his own video games which he develops with his brother at DYA Games.

As you might guess, as a pixel artist Alberto is mostly interested in video game art and he designs a lot of fantasy style sprites and 2D level layouts.

Diego Sanches

Diego Sanches is a Brazilian illustrator who is interested in comic book art, concept art and of course, pixel art. In 2013, he self published a sci-fi comic book called QUAD, along with three other artists.

As a pixel artist, Diego is interested in a wide range of styles and themes. His pixel art animations for the Coala music festival in 2017 are fantastic and his Science Kombat series will make you laugh. Be sure to check out Stephen Hawking in a rocket powered wheel chair and Kung Fu Albert Einstein.

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Nasc

Nasc is a Paris based Android software engineer and part time pixel artist. A lot of his characters are based on the Android robot and they’re super cute. Check out grumpy Yoda!