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This tutorial is intended to help those who are unfamiliar with digital graphics editing and pixel art make items for their avatars. If you only want to know the basic requirements for items, scroll down to the tutorial summary.

You can make your own custom clothing and accessories for your avatar. All you need is some raster graphics software, preferably one that can do pixel art (which is most graphics software), and a machine to run it on. Drawing your items pixel by pixel with an aliased brush will make them fit in nicely with the base artwork for a cohesive look. Pixel art has the added bonus of precision and control; you don't need to buy a fancy graphics tablet to draw dot by dot.

In this tutorial I will be using Aseprite, a paid graphics program specifically meant for making pixel art. However, you don't need to use this one as there are many free alternatives available. This thread has some software recommendations. I personally used FireAlpaca as my free program before switching to Aseprite.

Your program of choice must be able to export your image as transparent, otherwise your avatar will just be a clothing item with a white background, and the base will be invisible.

Your program** should also support layers**. This will make it much easier for you to draw clothing that aligns to the base artwork

Open your graphics program of choice and create a new canvas. The site standard for avatar bases is 64×64 **pixels. **Your canvas must be this size so that any clothing items you make will align properly with your chosen base.

Make sure that the background of your canvas is transparent. Some programs will provide this option in the canvas creation window. Others automatically create a white background layer for you each time a new canvas is made. To remove this white background layer, you usually need to make an additional layer and then delete the white one. Sometimes the background layer is locked; you may have to delete it to unlock it. Graphics programs often represent a transparent background with a grey checkerboard pattern, so if your canvas looks like that, you should be okay to move forward.

Choose a base body and import it into your canvas either by saving it to your computer or by copying it and pasting it into the canvas. I'm using the standard human base for this tutorial, but the instructions outlined here will work for any base.

Tip: If you want to make sure that your item layers well with other items that you use, you can import all of the items to the same canvas on different layers. That way you can play with the layering to see how it'll look once you upload to the site.

Make a new layer above the layer containing your chosen base. On this layer, we'll make a sketch or plan for the final item.

Naming your layers like I have here is a good way to make sure that you don't get mixed up while drawing. It can be frustrating to find out that you've been drawing on the wrong layer. To name your layer, you might have to right click the layer to find the option, or double click it to open a properties window. It varies from program to program.

Also take note of the eye icons to the left. Most programs have these. Clicking on one will allow you to hide or show the artwork for that particular layer.

Make sure your new layer is selected before you start drawing (clicking on the layer's name to highlight it will achieve this in most programs).

I like to use a bright colour, like red or green, when sketching so that my sketch stands out from any artwork on layers underneath or above.

Zooming in or out while drawing can help you draw with more precision. You can also draw by laying each pixel down individually for ultimate control over pixel placement.

Draw the basic outline of your desired item. I'm choosing to draw a cap. Let's use a 1 pixel-wide aliased brush. Don't worry if it's a little messy; just make sure it's clear enough for you to work with.

Pay attention to the contours of the base you're using and the angle at which it is facing. The human base is facing slightly to the right, so I'll draw the bill of the cap facing that way as well. I've also made sure that all of my lines either overlap or surround the pixels of the base, so that when I colour in my cap, there aren't any stray bits of head sticking out underneath.

Okay, that looks like a good enough cap. Once you're satisfied with your sketch, it's time to move on to the next step.

Make another new layer above your sketch layer for your lineart. This will be the final outline for your item. We will base it on the sketch you've just made.

Make sure your lineart layer is selected so that things don't get messy.

At this point I usually use black or another dark colour to draw over my sketch. You can hide the body layer for clarity if you find that it helps.

Use this step to refine your outline. Make it neat and make sure that it's easy to identify what you've chosen to depict.

Here I've temporarily hidden the body layer and kept the lines and sketch visible to illustrate the difference between the two. You can see that there are little pixels from the red sketch poking out under the black outline of the cap.

When I hide the sketch layer, you can see that the lineart is more crisp and refined than the sketch we based it on. This is achieved by carefully choosing which pixels make it to the final lineart and avoiding the “staircase” pixel placement shown in the sketch.

Colouring Stage

Shading and Finishing Touches