Pixel art guides
Practical writing on AI pixel art from building SpriteLab: what works, what doesn't, and the cleanup that makes the difference. No fluff, no SEO sludge.
The best AI tools for 2D game assets (2026)
SpriteLab, PixelLab, Scenario, Ludo.ai, Layer, Leonardo and Recraft ranked for 2D games, which tool to use for each kind of asset, and what to check before you pay.
5 October 2026 · 6 min read
The best AI pixel art generators (2026)
An honest look at the main AI pixel art tools, what each is good at, and how to choose. SpriteLab, PixelLab, pixie.haus and more, with the checklist that actually matters for game devs.
15 July 2026 · 5 min read
AI pixel art vs true pixel art: what's the difference?
Pixel artists say AI output "isn't real pixel art" and they're mostly right. What the conventions actually are, why models miss them, and the pipeline that closes most of the gap. Plus an honest list of what AI still can't do.
9 June 2026 · 6 min read
How to make sprite sheets with AI
Animation strips, multi-sprite asset packs and 4-direction rotation sheets. The workflow for each, why single-call grids are the best trick for style consistency, and an engine-side checklist before anything ships.
9 June 2026 · 7 min read
Pixel art palettes: how many colours, and which classics to steal
Working colour counts per asset type, the classic palettes worth knowing (Game Boy, PICO-8, Sweetie 16, Endesga, Apollo), hue shifting in one paragraph, and the honest rules for dithering.
9 June 2026 · 6 min read
Prompting for game sprites: what to say and what to leave out
The four-slot prompt structure that works, why concrete game references beat adjectives, the classic failure modes (background eats subject, accidental scenes), and when to retune instead of re-roll.
9 June 2026 · 5 min read
Using AI pixel art sprites in Unity (without the blur)
The import settings that actually matter (Point filtering, no compression, PPU), slicing sprite sheets, building animation clips, and fixes for edge bleeding and fringing.
9 June 2026 · 5 min read
How isometric autotiles work (2:1 diamonds and the 15-piece set)
Why games use a 2:1 diamond, how 15 corner tiles cover every shape, draw order for raised cliffs, and the Godot 4 and Tiled settings.
25 September 2026 · 6 min read
9-slice game UI: how it works in Godot, Unity and CSS
What nine-slicing does, how to set it up with NinePatchRect and StyleBoxTexture, Unity's Sliced images and CSS border-image, plus the border mistakes that make panels look cheap.
4 October 2026 · 6 min read
Using AI pixel art sprites in Godot 4 (crisp, not blurry)
Nearest filtering, viewport stretch with integer scaling, AnimatedSprite2D from a sprite sheet, and the reimport gotcha that catches everyone.
9 June 2026 · 5 min read
SpriteLab vs PixelLab
An honest comparison with the biggest name in AI pixel art: where they're strong, and where our cleanup pipeline and free retuning pull ahead.
Comparison
SpriteLab vs pixie.haus
Pretty interface, serious animation. How we differ on output cleanup, iteration cost and quality at the cheap end.
Comparison