This is a very basic tutorial. I may make a more complex one in the future. Also, forgive me if I don't make sense, I'm not so good at explaining things.




First, pick a drawing (it can be your own) that you want to turn into a pixel drawing. I'm using a Hasbro drawing in this case.



Shrink it down to the size you need. In this example, the longer size is 150 pixels to fit as an avatar.



I make another layer (it can probably be done without another layer - it just makes it easier for me to have one). And then I pick a color for the outline (blue) and use the pen tool.

On the upper layer, trace the outline of the body with your color.



Here's more of it done.



Just so you can see - here is what the blue outline looks like with the background hidden. You can see the blue lines are one pixel in width.



Okay, I put the background back into view and then with a different color, I trace the hair.



I'm not showing every step here, but I also traced the eye and filled in the template with the colors with the little bucket tool. The body is filled with a lighter shade of blue. The hair is filled up with a lighter shade of pink. Be aware some pixels might be blank and you'll have to fill in those, too.

Definitely save your progress as you go!

Now then, with my basic template complete, I can now make it look like just about any pony under the sun. I picked Applejack to be my victim.

To mimic the pony's color, I use the eye dropper tool to \"suck\" up the color of the body. You can use a photo, or a previously made adoptable, to get the color you need.



I suck up the orange color in this case. I want to replace the blue of the template with AJ's orange. So I use the color-replacing tool, too.



Here you can see two colors. The one that it is, and the one I'll replace it with.



I double click and every blue pixel of that shade is now replaced with that orange color. I'm getting closer to being done.



Have to change the outline color now. So I pick a darker shade of AJ's orange and use the dropper tool to pick up that darker shade of blue (the outline). Then, like I did before, I replace the colors.



Now I take the same sort of steps for the hair, involving AJ's yellow hair color and the pink color of the template.



Then I replace the color of the eye. I could have changed the color of the bow with all the same steps, but I just left it in this case.

I haven't bothered with wings, horns, shading, or even a symbol in this tutorial. I may just leave those for the future. But this will probably help you get the basic idea. Here's the finished product, by the way. Ready to fit in an avatar.



If I got confusing in there, please point it out and I'll do my best to clarify.

OMG! Thanks for posting this...I knew I could do this, but I never knew where to start!!! Maybe I'll FINALLY have some adoptables up THANKS!!!! *hug*

OMG thanks for posting this too
Now i can make one

That is sooooo helpful SDS!!!!

I might just go and find a pic to do adoptables from right now!! Wish me luck!!

Definitely an awesome tutorial ^^ I'm sure this will help a lot of people. Thanks SDS! ^^

Thanks for saying so, everyone.

Okay, here's another few steps about horns and wings, typical MLP adoptable requirements.
There are two basic approaches I can think of. One, you can have a separate file/template for each species that you need. Saves you from worrying about layers.

The second one is using separate layers for the wing(s) and the horn. Saves you from needing several files.



Either case, let's get started. This could be either your unicorn file or layer. (And by the way, I forgot to mention it, but don't worry about the blue checkerboard background. That's just PSP's way of saying that area is transparent).

You use the pen tool to draw in a horn, basically. If you want to make it simple on yourself, just make it a triangle with maybe a rounded tip. I use the same color outline as I used for the body.



Then fill in the lines with the appropriate color. Yes, feel free to color over some of the lines of the hair, to make it look like it's coming through the locks of hair.



Then I started on a wing layer (or file). You can ignore the horn's presence in this picture if you like, because it is on a different layer and can even be put into hidden mode.

Drawing wings is a little more complicated. I suppose you could use a guide or just keep it simple. Whatever you feel you can handle.

My own method is to find an MLP drawing or picture of a pegasus, shrink it down to the right size and tracing over it. Then transferring the tracing to my adoptable. Complicated, I know.



I forgot to take a screen shot, but the wing gets filled in, too.



Here's a screen shot of what the layers kind of look like.

Since I use the layer method, I can either show or hide the wing/horn layer when called for. If I'm making Twilight, I show the horn layer and hide the wing layer. I have to take another couple steps to color the horn the right color, as shown in my first post. But it's not a big deal.



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The next post I make in this thread will involve shading. Boy, is it getting dark in here and rumbly outside. *eyes impending thunderstorm warily*

Wow wow wow! Thanks SDS!!

Photoshop still hates me to mae pixel adopts xD only use it to make bgs transparent.

I wouldn't know, but I believe you. *huggles Paint Shop Pro 8*

*****

Okay, here is the shading segment of the tutorial. The amount and style of shading is totally up to the maker. If you need inspiration as to where the shadows go and the light areas go, take one of your plastic ponies and hold it near a light for ideas.

It can be a simple or as complicated as you feel comfortable with. More complex might be more visually appealing (or at least I think so), but it's also more time consuming.

That's a very key phrase with pixel adoptables - time consuming.



I've added just a tiny bit of shading on the body in this screen shot. Shadowy areas are typically under the belly, neck, and mane.



Here I've added a second, darker bit of shading to the pony.

This is a very simple level of shading, and yet it still looks appealing.

Now I get a little more complicated. (Just a little.)



Here's a few steps added. I've put shading not only under the belly, but down the back of the legs, too. I've also added some brighter colors, where our imaginary light source shines on the pony.

I'm not completely pleased with the shapes of the shadows and highlights, but it's adequate. Sometimes I spend quite a bit of time tweaking it all to try to make it look realistic as I can. Other times I say the [blank] with it!



Here's a quick peek at the wing and horn. It might not be easy to see in this screen shot, but there's a tad bit of shading and highlighting on those too. Not much is required.



Now then, I've passed a few steps and did the hair. You can see the little close up there. I've got four shades of color in the hair, plus the white areas to see how shiny it is.

You have as many levels of shading as you want. One, two, three million, whatever. I typically go for four, but it's totally up to you. The white really makes the hair shiny.

This is more of a tip than an instruction:



I borrowed one of my other adoptables for this image. You can make the shading look smoother if you make this kind of checkerboard pattern (one pixel in size) along the edges, where one shade touches another.

Anyway....

Except for shading on the ribbon, I've finished the template I'm going to use over and over again. Which reminds me, you might want to make a backup copy of your template in case you accidentally overwrite it with someone's persona. It would be harder to work with it if your template suddenly looked like... erm... Sketch for example (picking on YLH here).

I speak from experience on this one.



Now I start replacing the colors again, like I demonstrated in the first post. I'll pick on Applejack again. You can see the color replacing tool only touched the one shade in my template.



Here's a few steps along when I've replaced the darker blues with the darker oranges, and the light blue with light orange. Don't forget the outline, too.



And I did the hair and the eye too. I added the freckles. Doing symbols is a whole other post I think but it just involves shrinking it and putting it on the adoptable, in a nutshell. Or drawing it by hand. Or simply not making symbols at all - there's no one way to do things.

Here's what she looks like now:



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That basically covers how to make a pixel adoptable. If you like layers, you can make squiggly lines over the pony's feet and have a "boy pony" layer. I have the ribbon on a separate layer and I can take it off if I wanted to make a boy pony.

Good luck with all your adoptable making. If you are dying for more tips and instructions, you could probably find a million tutorials in places like DeviantArt. The sky's the limit.

great tutorial.

You are my hero! Gotta love PSP!

wow!!! thanks SDS i really had no clue how you guys do all these awesome pixel arts LOL now i feel emboldened to try LOL

Awesome!!! *huggles SDS* Thank you so much! I was always so curious!! *bookmarks for sure!!* I so want to try this one day!

Would you all like me to sticky this thread? I can even make the template available so everyone can practice transforming them into different colors.

I'm simply re-shading it right now.

A sticky would be AWESOME.