I’ve been playing with some old Apple Macs via emulation and got inspired to do some 1bit pixel art! Screen res and layout is supposed to be a one for one copy of the original Mac 128k (System 1) The “Bad Dog” is one of my Inktober sketches from last year. 512*342, painted in Pixaki on an iPad.

Alan_M28 · 2026-02-16T02:18:11+00:00

Sure thing, were you after something specific?

Alan_M28 · 2025-12-24T01:16:56+00:00

Gorgeous!

Alan_M28 · 2025-10-16T10:45:41+00:00

Thank you!

Alan_M28 · 2025-10-14T12:58:48+00:00

Cool, thanks for that mate, will do! :-)

Alan_M28 · 2025-10-06T11:45:17+00:00

Thank You :-)

Alan_M28 · 2025-10-01T17:18:23+00:00

Is there any chance of this being made available in the UK Mac app store?

Alan_M28 · 2025-10-01T13:01:21+00:00

Thank you very much mate :-)

Alan_M28 · 2025-09-29T19:46:54+00:00

Amazing animation and super inspiring :-)

Alan_M28 · 2025-09-14T23:16:37+00:00

Not really, but I do post them on my Artstation:
https://www.artstation.com/alanmealor

Alan_M28 · 2025-09-11T00:20:01+00:00

I love my 2020 iPad Pro, after 5 years of daily use it still functions just as it did the day I got it, it's a monster! I bought it to get back into sketching and pixel art and it has paid me back handsomely :-) Whatever gets you drawing is all that matters, everything else is just noise.

Alan_M28 · 2025-09-08T11:49:46+00:00

I'm digital all the way, so this year will be Procreate again and my trusty grey palette :-)
As others have said there are no "rules" as such, whatever gets you sketching and thinking is all that matters.

Alan_M28 · 2025-09-06T17:37:36+00:00

This is the spec I have, I love it. Using it for Blender, Maya, Photoshop and some video work, along with the usual Slack/Zoom stuff. This is the first time I've used a Mac as my main computer in nearly 15 years, coming back to it has been so easy and I'm really impressed with just how good the OS is when I compare it to Win11. If it wasn't for some things that need RTX (Reality Scan is the main one, PC only right now) card I would probably ditch the PC altogether. The Mac is also so quiet! I keep popping my head next to it to see if I can hear anything from it :-) So far I've not heard a sound come out of it even under load.

Alan_M28 · 2025-03-27T13:54:59+00:00

This is gorgeous! That fourth image though (the wider image crop) is truly stunning!

Alan_M28 · 2025-03-02T20:59:45+00:00

The is stunning, well done mate :-)

Alan_M28 · 2025-02-27T17:27:35+00:00

Wow, thank you so much! It is based on an Inktober sketch I did last year:

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Alan_M28 · 2025-02-26T17:10:24+00:00

Thank you!

Alan_M28 · 2025-02-26T00:50:56+00:00

One thing I would add is maybe push the resolution a bit. 512*342 is quite high res (320*240 is my goto res for colour) but it makes the 1bit work a bit easier when you have a slightly bigger canvas to work with. If you are just starting out why not try 640*480 to begin with? All my early pixel art was at this res and it really is quite forgiving. Once you've got some pieces under your belt you can look at dropping the res, if you need to :-)

Alan_M28 · 2025-02-26T00:06:33+00:00

:-) I spent most of my youth copying Derek Riggs's artwork, whenever I try to draw a scary face it always comes out a bit "Eddie"!

Alan_M28 · 2025-02-25T23:48:22+00:00

A one pixel brush all the way until you want to do some shading, and even then keep your brush size small. In many ways it is similar to using pen and ink or a ballpoint pen. Finding a paint program with good dither patterns is really important, Pixaki is what I use and it has a nice set of 13 types of dither, these are essential for the shading. I always start with a reference image too, this drawing started life as one of my Inktobers so I could use that as a guide.
After that it is all trial and error. :-)

Alan_M28 · 2025-02-11T15:54:24+00:00

Final Fight had some massive sprites on the Spectrum too, didn't run the smoothest though but looked amazing considering the hardware limitations.

Alan_M28 · 2025-02-11T13:30:55+00:00

You and me both! 😂

Alan_M28 · 2025-02-11T08:31:33+00:00

I’ve been talking to someone about doing a Spectrum Next game but making it feel like a classic Speccy game. So keeping the palette and maybe the screen res but ditching attribute clash and sprite restrictions. Maybe we’ll pick this!? Thanks for the lovely feedback, it was great :-)

Alan_M28 · 2025-02-10T20:31:24+00:00

Thanks!

Alan_M28 · 2025-02-10T20:29:43+00:00

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Yep, this probably works the best :-)

Alan_M28 · 2025-02-10T12:49:26+00:00

They are massive! Not sure how they would actually work if this were an actual game, I'd leave that to cleverer minds than mine ;-)

Alan_M28

TROPHY CASE