Hey guys,
I've been having fun creating pixel arts of my own keyboards. So happy to share the tools and templates here for those who are interested in DIY.
First of all, there's already an excellent thread here called "Keyboard Pixel Art Thing" so you might want to check it out. Your keyboards may have already been covered there. This thread is another step-by-step guide to drawing some yourself. I'm also a total amateur so feel free to leave feedback down below.
- To begin with, I recommend http://pixelartmaker.com. It's free, easy to share and requires no software to install. Pixen for Mac is awesome too if you want to keep your work private.
- You can start from scratch or build on top of my templates:
- Some suggestions:
- Key size: In the example above, I use a 4x4 block for each 1u key.
- The select tool: use it to copy and paste. Handy when recoloring all those rows.
- Color picker: used to make color consistent or create variation.
- Lighting: darken the pixels at the bottom to make the keys and the cases more 3D-ish.
- Eraser: The default eraser is too thin to be really efficient. So try to just select a large white area and cover things with it.
- Once you are ready to export your work, click the floppy disk icon. Then select an area, save it, get a link and png to download.
- Save each keyboard as individual png on your computer. And upload them to Imgur. Right click on the images to get the actual locations of them.
- Add BBCode to your signature. Example: [img width=78 height=34]https://i.imgur.com/EsNOAAY.png[/img1] (Replace "img1" with "img"). Make sure the size are integers and try not to distort the aspect ratio. And then update your profile!
Funny thing is that if you click on the thumbnails they kinda enlarge like the Dock on the Mac. My only gripe so far is that the result looks slightly larger that the signature becomes a little distracting.
