Also available on SoundCloud

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@Pixelarf

On Twitter, @IQAndreas asked "Do you use any special tool or software to (1) Generate and then (2) Draw your daily pixelarf challenge?"

Originally, I wasn't @Pixelarf.

The Pixelarf account appeared on or around Jan 1st 2015, and I took up the challenge of replying with a daily doodle, because I'd already decided 2015 was going to be my "Gap Year" from AGameAWeek.
I needed something to pad out my mornings, and this seemed perfect.

Each morning, Pixelarf posted his scrawls, and I would draw a pixelart around them.

After a few months of this daily routine, around May 2015, Pixelarf took a short break due to illness. During this break, I wrote a short "temporary" .php generator, which would create a new pixelarf-like scrawl each day.
I used this in the interim, until one day I received the following message.

"Hi Jay I was wondering if you wanted to take over the PixelArf twitter? When I've came back from being ill, I didn't get excited to continue"

It seemed like an odd request, mostly because I didn't think I could come up with a random scrawl each day, AND doodle a pixelart, but given I'd created a temporary generator, I figured it was probably not entirely impossible to bulk it up and make it a little more substantial.

And so, I took over the Pixelarf account, and used the generator to create daily scrawls.
It's continued to be like this ever since, although I do on occasion like to enhance the generator to get more "realistic" random scrawls out of it. (At one point it kept giving me nothing but Tetris blocks! I'm still not sure what that was all about!!)

But I'm otherwise ruled by the generator. It has a daily seed, and that creates a specific pixelarf scrawl each day, which I then post to the Pixelarf account, and shortly thereafter begin my own doodle reply..

Even though I'm "In Control" of Pixelarf, now, I'm more the co-pilot who simply follows the orders of
the Captain!

You can Visit the Pixelart.php tool! It's very static, but if you visit it before I can be bothered to wake up, you'll have a head-start on that day's pixelart!

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As for drawing my Daily Platdude Pixelarts, I use the iOS app Sprite Something, which is great for doodling pixels.
I first trace over the scrawl in a 16x16 grid, then copy it and paste it into a 64x64 grid, where I proceed to draw around it to create that day's a pixelart.

The process used to take a couple of hours or so, but nowadays (after plenty of practice) I can generally doodle a pixelart within about half an hour.

Remember, kids. Practice may not make you perfect, but it sure does make you faster at achieving the goal!
.. I think!
....Maybe!

Daily Doodle : Banging in the Nails

Platdude's trying out his new nailgun by securing a new fixed surface onto his workbench.
Seems to be working quite well.

Misc..

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If you'd like to stuff my mailbag, (Please do!!) you can do so right here, at https://bit.ly/AGAW_Mail. Send comments, questions, game ideas, thoughts and more, and they'll usually show up on my daily blog, the very next day.