Pixel art glass: tinted and transparent

Draw tinted glass in shades of one color: everything behind it turns into that color. Draw transparent glass with a glare: a few diagonal stripes that are lighter and less saturated than what's behind. Never use layer transparency. Try both below.

This sprite is wide. It's easier to draw on a computer, or with your phone turned sideways.

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Tinted glass: one color

Pick the tint, here a blue. Then draw what's behind the glass, the frame divisions and the shadows all in shades of that one blue. A monochrome palette is what makes the eye read it as colored glass. It works for glass doors, glass buildings and skyscraper windows.

Transparent glass: the glare

Clear glass has no color of its own, so how do you show it's there? With a glare. Without it, there may as well be a hole cut in the wall. Take the color behind the glass and make it lighter and less saturated: that's the glare. Parts of objects behind a glare stripe also turn lighter and less saturated. The window body stays darker and more saturated, the glare lighter and softer.

Why no transparency

It's tempting to lower a layer's opacity and call it glass. Don't. Every semi transparent pixel mixes into a new color you never picked, and keeping the palette consistent becomes very hard. Choose the glass colors yourself, and you stay in control of every pixel.

Your turn

Draw a small shop window with something behind it: a plant, a lamp, a poster. First in its own colors, then add two diagonal glare stripes and recolor the parts under them lighter and softer. Then try the same window tinted green.

Before you go

Take the free Starter Kit with you

Two cheat sheets from my course, a worksheet to practice lines and a sprite set to study. Free.

After that, a short pixel art lesson from me every few days. You can stop them with one click.