Banishedpixels
Tell me a bit about your history playing XIV! What pulled you in, and what inspired you to start creating art and merch for it?
I was a pretty infrequent MMO player involved in a few different styles of the genre in the past from WoW, to FlyFF, Black Desert Online, and a few others here and there. It had been a few years and I wanted to get back into the genre. My first attempt with XIV was during Shadowbringers but it didn’t pull me in as I mostly played by myself. I came back post-Endwalker with a group of friends who picked up the game between that time and was hooked. The sense of community and not feeling alone in such a large world was necessary.
I had made a few pieces of pixel art for this group that helped reignite my love for pixel art after a long term hiatus. My first merch line was my pixel art job stone set as just a practice prompt for myself – I had some background knowledge and experience with sticker making and decided to take a crack at it myself. It’s been a lot of fun learning this new skill!
How does your personal creative outlook or style influence the merchandise and art you create (XIV or otherwise)? What do you hope people take away or feel from your work?
Since pixel art is such a niche genre I feel it really helps my products stand out compared to modern digital art styles. I hope others can feel the call to nostalgia and help influence the recent pixel art revival through my works as well.
Is there a piece of art you’ve created that you are especially proud of – for example, a piece that pushed or “leveled up” your skills, or one that was particularly popular, or perhaps something that came out exactly as you had imagined it?
Each time I take a long term hiatus from pixel art, I come back with a large project – typically a character art piece. I utilize methods that I adopt from studying others’ art styles as well as lighting or posing techniques that I use in Gpose in-game.
An example of this is a Secret Santa gift I made for a friend last year:
This piece utilizes the posing, lighting and shading effects I learned while building my Gpose skills. I also used a thick black outline on the bottom portion of the character outlines, something I typically had not done in pixel art prior, to build depth and bring out the characters amongst the “battle effects” of the piece. Different textures such as the wood and blade portions of the scythe were also a new technique I tried out for this piece. Overall, I think this is some of the best character art I have done in quite some time.
What is a future project you hope to pursue, whether in fandom spaces or in your personal work?
This past year has been full of new projects venturing into fan merch sales. I am tabling my first convention at GATEway FATE in St. Louis this year and am beyond excited to learn from this experience. I hope this table experience is the first of many to follow.
I’m very fond of pixel art and pixel portraits of GBA and DS-era games (Pokemon Black/White and Ace Attorney sprites are some of my favorites). What are some of your strongest inspirations for your pixel art, and what characteristics of these inspirations do you hope to achieve in your own work?
Pokemon sprites and Ace Attorney portraits were some great sources of inspiration at the time. I probably even still have some old fan edits!
I may be showing my age a bit here, but I got my start sprite editing in the era of Pixel Dollz and Gaia Online. Naked and bald anime or manga screenshot tracings called Bases were very big on deviantART at the time as well – you would add on hair and clothing, recolor and shade and call the output your own creation. I wish readers could see how I’m blushing at this, but hey we all start somewhere, right? I used Win98 and XP’s MSPaint for the first half of my pixel art career. Talk about making art on Hard Mode!
Background aside, my inspirations lie especially in the GBA and even the DS era of pixel-styled games. The purpose of pixel art is to convey as much detail as simply as you can – pixel by pixel. Every pixel placement counts. In a lot of cases, color palettes were limited due to the system constraints at the time (I’ll spare the definition breakdown, but this is where the terms 2-bit, 8-bit, 16-bit and so on come from). Looking at these older sprites and seeing just how detailed this constrained medium can be inspires me. I can honestly say I like the “rules” and meticulousness of the style.
I want my art to convey these old-school rules, even if some don’t apply anymore. Color palettes don’t need to be so limited. You can use modern art programs that utilize layers, opacities, effects and animation. But the foundations of the genre are still there, and they matter to me.
If I may give a shoutout, I would love to mention that The Spriter’s Resource (https://www.spriters-resource.com/ , https://bsky.app/profile/spriters-resource.com ) was and is a treasure trove of study material and pixel art archival. I cannot thank this team enough. I would not be the pixel artist I am without this precious resource.
Thank you for your time, I truly enjoyed this interview.
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Spooky Klauser
Tell me a bit about your history playing XIV! What pulled you in, and what inspired you to start creating art and merch for it?
I started playing maaaaaany years ago, during the Heavensward story. There was no real interesting point that brought me in, I just saw the original trial (before the meme) and knew I loved FF as a whole. I was a bit wary of MMOs, seeing as my dad pretty much raised me on WoW and I found it dull, so I worried I’d find it boring. But, I ended up buying the full game and haven’t looked back. Took me a while to catch up with story as I hopped on different ‘mains’ before I settled on my current WoL. I actually remember my first proper patch being the Gears of Change patch. It took a long time after that to really start creating from it, though. I drew my WoL, O’ai, a bunch, but didn’t create any actual merch until after Shadowbringers, which inspired a few things that I made.
How does your personal creative outlook or style influence the merchandise and art you create (XIV or otherwise)? What do you hope people take away or feel from your work?
I always just hope my work is something that people genuinely enjoy. Even if it’s just seeing merch of a fandom you don’t see often, or just finding something I made to be fun. (I used to sell a sticker of a Moogle holding a knife that simply said; “Piss off, Kupo.” It usually got the most giggles at conventions). But sometimes whatever I make can also be an experiment for me, like how I draw chibis, how I shade, how I can use different techniques, etc.
Is there a piece of art you’ve created that you are especially proud of – for example, a piece that pushed or “leveled up” your skills, or one that was particularly popular, or perhaps something that came out exactly as you had imagined it?
I have a few that I felt really came out super well and improved me. FF-wise, my Crystal Exarch work made me feel like I was getting better at bolder colours and actually attempting a background. Outside of FF, a Zenless Zone Zero fanart I did of Asaba Harumasa is one I actually adore, because it felt like I really did well with gradients and composition and learning how to better reference.
What is a future project you hope to pursue, whether in fandom spaces or in your personal work?
I think the dream would be a webcomic inspired by The Unending Journey. I’ve been the DM of a XIV-themed DnD game for a few years, which is just the plot of XIV with actual warriors of light and seeing how things play with these different personalities. I’d adore the idea of actually writing a comic based on their misadventures.
You draw characters from a wide variety of franchises. Have you found that there is a particular “type” of character that is often the most fun to explore in your art, and what are some characters that have fit this mold for you?
Oddly, a bit of both has ended up happening… I ended up enjoying pin ups for a long time, so ended up very much leaning into ‘teehee hot lady’ for that time. But I’ve found more enjoyment going out of the comfort zone, drawing characters with a variety of looks and personalities that end up being shown in how they’ve been drawn, but I still end up drawing characters that, somehow, usually smile because I quite like drawing a big grin.
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