[throwaway03857]

I always find it fascinating to see the constraints that artists work under and how this effects their work. One thing none artists probably don't know is that a large part of traditional artist training is doing exercises under artificially constrained conditions in order to improve technique (source - I originally trained as a painter - 3 years vocational art and design qualification and 3 year degree). For example you might be given a continual line assignment (draw an entire picture without taking your pen off the paper), or to do life drawings without taking your eyes off the subject (so no looking at what you're drawing). These exercises are the equivalent of doing "scales" For musicians. They're largely boring, and often frustrating but dedicating time to them and doing them consistently over the course of years pays off. Early pixel art is amazing to me because there are so many constraints - in the tools (seriously drawing with joysticks!), the color pallets, the limited resomution and the exploiting of rendering and display artificats. Anyway, just some random thoughts.

[udev]

Constraints are not used just for developing technique, but they also have an unintuitive effect -- boost creativity.

Think of how hard it is to start writing an essay on "any topic you like" versus a more specific, constrained one e.g., "about the influence of art on science in 16th century".

Something interesting happens when a creative person is constrained by the medium (e.g. limited number of pixels and colours) or by other factors (e.g. limited budget, time, access to instruments, CPU speed, hardware), these circumstances seem to somehow increase creativity.

Many of the great works of art were created in times of intense hardship for their authors.

[busfahrer]

I agree, artificial constraints often lead to the most creative results, be it haiku or fantasy consoles like PICO-8.

[rozab]

You might be interested in this GCD talk. The speaker was an artist on various classic adventure games. I found it really interesting how he considered himself a traditional artist and doesn't really like computers at all.

The things they achieved with pallette switching were unbelievable, especially considering the limitations of their tools. It's crazy how he managed to do this stuff just in basic paint programs. Some HNers will be horrified (just write some code!) but I think it's really inspiring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcJ1Jvtef0

[flobosg]

Some of Mark Ferrari's palette-shifting scenes can be found at:

http://www.effectgames.com/demos/worlds/

http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/

[dwater]

If you visit the worlds link, be sure to select "Show Options" and adjust the time of day. I'm assuming there are a lot of programmatic elements that create these effects.

[kevin_thibedeau]

It's all palette shifting with designated regions for different lighting directions.

[com2kid]

A few years back, I used a few tools piecemealed together to make a living wallpaper from Ferrari's waterfall piece.

I'll now gladly pay to have it done properly. :)

Edit: Curses, no parallax! The version of waterfall I made has parallax scrolling, I worked very hard getting that working! (By which I mean I found one strange wallpaper tool from a Korean developer that is the only tool that worked to pull off parallax animated GIF wallpapers). On a 21:9 screen. waterfall is about 3 screens wide...

[derefr]

> drawing with joysticks!

I mean, it's a rare artist who was sketching on their computer in the early 80s (the "keyboard and joystick" era of micros.)

The usual workflow was to draw your art on some grid-paper and then plot it onto the screen — either in a paintbrush program, or even more simply, by typing the numbers into a text file to produce a PBM/PGM/PPM image, and then running a tool to convert that to whatever format you need. (In some workflows, the artist themselves could be working entirely on paper, leaving the plotting to a data-entry intern.)

With such a workflow, clumsiness of input method doesn't really matter — it's not impinging on your creative process, since the creative process is already over by the time you sit down at the computer screen.

Why, then, did paintbrush software even exist? Well, it could be helpful for finishing touch-ups to plotted input (especially hand-dithering to suit a given system's palette — effectively the "color grading" of the early digital era.) And, of course, paintbrush software was helpful for quickly banging out "programmer art" mock-ups to use in your game/app, before an artist comes in to replace it with something better.

By the late 80s, 'serious' digital painting software for professional artists to create in came about. But said software either shipped only for systems that had a mouse (e.g. the Mac); or the software package itself shipped with a mouse (as in the case of PC Paint.) So "doing digital painting with a joystick" was never really a thing.

[austinjp]

I wrote my own paint package, using ZX*? keys to move the pen and space/enter to lift/drop. I recreated the cover art of games cassettes in 8 hand-dithered colours. Not even a joystick in sight. Happy days :)

[kazinator]

I used to draw with paddles; it was much like etch-a-sketch.

[allenu]

Forced constraints are definitely a great training tool. I think constraints in general also bring about great creativity in the artist. Having little to work with forces the artist to look at the essence of what they're trying to create/communicate and "do more with less", which leads to a sort of innovation.

One of my favorite drawing exercises I have done in a drawing class is speed drawing. You're asked to sketch a model in different poses, but at first you are given 1 minute per pose, and then 30 seconds per pose, then 10 seconds per pose, then 5 seconds per pose. It really forces you to look at the core shapes you see and translate them into as few lines as needed.