Pixel Horrors is my collection of famous / infamous monsters & characters throughout horror media done in a pixel realism style!

This was my first ever introduction to digital illustration, where I transferred my traditional realism painting techniques over to a digital canvas. Being such a fan of horror, I wanted to showcase these horror icons into a pixel artwork style and just learned as I went!

Wanting to finally switch from traditional mediums to a digital medium, I decided to make the jump with the tech I had at the moment.

My beginnings were done on an old MacBook Pro with a software called Pixelmator Pro (which is actually an amazing software for doing digital illustrations. It’s like photoshop and illustrator built into one but without a monthly subscription), using the mousepad as my method for illustrating. I used this combination for a few years before trying my hand at an external Wacom tablet that allowed for me to at least draw using my hand. It was still super annoying to use and definitely wasn’t a method of illustrating that I wanted to continue with.

But during the times of me learning how to use the software, with the hardware limitations, I made a bunch of these Pixel Horror artworks. I would gather as much references as I could and slowly start pixel shading until it was done. This process caused the illustrations to take FOREVER to make. It was definitely annoying, but I wanted to do digital art soooo badly that I was willing to put up with the countless hours of frustration.

Thankfully now I have my iPad Pro and my Apple Pencil 2 to get my work done. Such a breath of fresh air!

Before I ever switched to digital illustration, my main art medium was traditional acrylic painting and charcoal/pencil sketches in a realism style. I learned by drawing what i see and perfecting realism. Realism was my main stable all throughout my childhood and teen years. I ended up starting to find it a bit undesirable as I went along.

My favorite styles of artwork consist of fantasy portraits and unique stylization in shapes and forms. So I quickly wanted to do artwork in that style, but didn’t have a basis to start on. I started forcing myself to learn how to paint and draw on a Wacom external drawing pad connected to Pixelmator. But continuing in my realism, I wanted a different feel and look to the artwork (which I could only achieve doing pixel designs). This ultimately lead to me making a bunch of artwork showcasing my love for pixel art and horror characters. I wouldn’t figure out my love for comic linework and dynamic shading until years later.

Because im such a fan of horror, I wanted to make realism illustrations done in a pixel artwork style of my favorite monsters throughout movies, tales, folklore, etc. Anything associated with the bizarre was a perfect example of what I wanted to make.

I was extremely limited to what I was able to illustrate, given that I made everything using a mousepad on a old MacBook & sometimes an external Wacom drawing pad, so I figured pixel art would be the coolest thing to illustrate (without pulling my hair out due to my technical limitations).

Besides that, I stabilized my narrative to be designs that incorporate the horror/fantasy character while also showcasing their backstories and overall aesthetics. I made roughly 30 of them over the years, but concentrated them into a few ones that I believe represent the collection. The ones I decided were either rushed or not completely up to my standards, will later be made into my *NOW* main digital illustration style (Legends in Panel). I have a lotttt of illustrations to work on lol

Horror movies and books were some of my favorite media growing up. So I knew immediately that I wanted the overall design to be something that looks like a movie poster but not actually showcasing a poster ratio. I wasn’t 100% certain on what I wanted them to be, but I eventually landed on the idea of them being square canvases that must have a uniform typeface/typography/logo displaying their names.

Because I had this established, every new pixel horror that I would work on started with the name of the character/monster first. I would then decide how I wanted the character to fill the empty space, while also maintaining the focal point. The bordering outlines were made to print stickers and get placed on t-shirts. I later started making darkened backgrounds to put the design into a printed format (built fairly close to how I know do my Tiny Terrors designs).

Because I’m now more established and proficient in design structure and composition, I just decided to leave these as they were to make sure that I didn’t delete them all and change the style to my most recent stylization designs. Since these are my first digital illustrations, Its now cemented as my beginning point!

Honestly the name is just a combination of the style of the illustrations and the content in which they’re based off of! Nothing super fancy or special about it!

Truthfully, I dont ever plan on making any more of these illustrations. I had my fun designing and illustrating with a pixel style, but I honestly enjoy doing the more stylized comic look to what im currently landing on!

The only way I would ever make one of these again, is if someone commissioned me to do one! They’re fun to make, and aesthetically they look fairly appealing, but I would so much rather do something that has a bit more style!

Feel free to contact me & ask me any questions you have! I’m a super open book & absolutely love engaging with amazing people! Just head over to my contact page & send me a message! :)