Ready to draw a whale in pixel art? This tutorial breaks the process down into simple steps, making it easy for you to design your own ocean-inspired creature one pixel at a time.

Let’s make a whale in pixel art! In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create an adorable sea creature that works perfectly as a video game sprite, a fun addition to your digital art collection, or a creative piece to share on social media. With a few easy steps, you’ll have your very own pixel whale ready in no time.

---

How to Make a Pixel Art Whale

These are the basic steps for how to make a pixel art whale:

1. Select a Pixel Art Software such as Adobe Photoshop, Mega Voxels or Aseprite
2. Create a 32×32 pixel grid for your whale
3. Sketch out an Outline for the shape of the whale
4. Fill in the color of the pixel art whale
5. Draw a Shade on the whale to create depth
6. Fill in the Background with Color

Now that you are familiar with the basic steps on how to create a pixel art whale, we will cover each step visually so that you can follow along on how to create it.

If you are completely new to pixel art we recommend reading our post How to Create Pixel Art: Beginner’s Tutorial

Select a Pixel Art Software

In this beginner tutorial we will be showing you the steps to design your own pixel art whale regardless of what pixel editor software you prefer to use. Before we begin you will need to know how to create a grid and use the pencil tool in the software of your choice. Once you create your pixel art whale, you can use the pixel art in other games such as Minecraft or software such as Unity Game Engine. We offer tutorials on the following pixel art editor’s so feel free to pick the one that you feel most comfortable with:

• Photoshop Tutorials
• Aseprite Tutorials
• Mega Voxels Pixel Art Tutorials
• Illustrator Tutorials

Want to see what pixel art software is best for you? Read our post Top Free Pixel Art Software

Create a Grid

To begin we will be using a simple 32×32 pixel grid to draw a small pixel art whale. Making 32×32 pixel art is a common size when making pixel art, especially for projects like video games. Be sure that your canvas is set to the color White (#FFFFFF). This will be our canvas that we use to draw our pixel art whale on. Your whale pixel art grid should have a canvas, also known as a spreadsheet, that looks something similar to this:

Sketch an Outline for the Whale

Next we will start by making the outline for the whale so we can get the overall shape for our pixel whale. To do this choose the color Black (#000000) and activate the pencil tool in your editor. Since this determines the overall shape, feel free to adjust the outline to what match your game or art project. As a guide, you can use the outline we made below for your whale or like we mentioned before feel free to design your own.

Fill in the Color

Now that you made an outline for your pixel art whale, we will add some color to make it stand out. Fill in the main section of the whale the color (#80AF47). You can use the eyedropper tool to get the remaining colors. Try matching the picture of our 8 bit pixel art whale below.

Draw the Shading

So whenever you create pixel art there are essentially two parts to shading: the highlights and the shadows. We will start with the shadows. We will be applying a shadow to our 32×32 pixel art whale using a single color. This color will be generally be applied to the bottom of the whale. Remember, to create a shadow color for the whale we will use a darker version of the color we used before (#679232). To create more shades you can simply color pick the main color and darken it. Try to match where we put the shadows in the image below.

So now that you got the basic idea we will continue adding some depth to our whale to give it a 3D feel. Let’s create a highlight using the same color from the main whale section, but instead of going darker this time we will go lighter (#90C059). Remember, this doesn’t have to be the exact color in fact this is an opportunity to make the whale look like your own. Use our image as a guide for your whale.

Great! When you are happy with your shadows and highlights on your whale, be sure to view your final image. To see your pixel art whale go ahead and turn off the grid lines to make sure you like the way the whale came out.

Fill the Background Color

Finally, let’s change the background color of our whale sprite to really make our whale stand out nicely. Select the Bucket fill tool in your editor. For the color enter a very Light Blue (#BCEAFE). Then simply click on the white area outside of the pixel whale.

Where to Go From Here

Congratulations! You now know how to create your very own pixel art whale. You can create different versions of your pixel whale by changing the colors or modifying the size.

Bonus: Make a 3D Pixel Art Whale

Now that you have drawn your own pixel art whale, you can turn it 3D with Mega Voxels. Mega Voxels contains a 3D Pixel Art Maker that allows you to convert traditional 2D pixels into 3D pixels. Simply download the free Mega Voxels app for iOS or Android.

Then import the pixel art you just made using the Add File button inside of the My Gallery page. And that’s it! Mega Voxels automatically transforms you pixel art whale into a 3D pixel art whale. You can now create 3D turntable videos of your 3D pixel art whale and even view your whale in Augmented Reality!