Pixel Art Terms: Doubles, Jaggies, Banding, Pillow Shading and More

Most pixel art mistakes have a name: doubles, jaggies, banding, pillow shading, over anti-aliasing and noise. Once you know the names, you start to see them in your own work, and each one has a simple fix.

Students often ask me what people mean when they say their art has banding or pillow shading. Fair question. I show the fixes in my lessons, but I don't always say the names. So here they are, one by one, in plain words. For each one: what it is, why it looks wrong, and how to fix it.

Mistakes in lines

Doubles

A double is a pixel too many in a line: two pixels sit side by side, touching on the flat side, where one diagonal step would do. It makes the line look thicker in that spot, and the eye catches it right away. The fix: remove one of them, so the line steps only through the corners. A line should be one pixel wide everywhere.

Jaggies

Jaggies are steps in a line that don't follow a pattern. A smooth line or curve changes its runs little by little: 3, 3, 2, 1, then 2, 3, 4. If it jumps from 2 to 6 to 1, it looks broken. A single misplaced pixel does the same. The fix: keep straight lines on a clean ratio (1:1, 1:2, 1:3) and let curves change by one or a couple of pixels at a time.

Roman's lines worksheet: a curve with a double, with a jaggy and with a broken math order, each next to the corrected curve — From my lines worksheet: the red pixels are the mistakes, the green ones the fix.

Mistakes in shading

Pillow shading

Pillow shading is when the shadow follows the outline all the way around and the light sits in the middle. The object looks flat and puffy, like a pillow. It happens when you shade from the edges instead of from the light. The fix: decide where the light comes from first. The side facing the light gets the light colors, the far side gets the shades. Every pixel has to agree with that one light.

Roman's sphere with the light from the top left — Left: my sphere shaded the wrong way on purpose. Right: the way I shade it in the course.

Banding

Banding is when shading tones sit in neat stripes of the same width that follow the outline, or when the steps of two tones line up right next to each other. The stripes become the first thing you see, and the form gets lost. The fix: make the shapes of your tones different widths, follow the form and the light instead of the outline, and break up lined up steps.

A sphere shaded in straight stripes of the same width — Left: the same tones laid in even stripes. Right: the shadow follows the round form.

Roman's sphere with a curved shadow and a thin terminator — Left: the same tones laid in even stripes. Right: the shadow follows the round form.

Flat shading

One color per part and no shade or light at all. It's not wrong for a first pass, that's exactly how I lay down the base colors. But if it stays like that, the object has no volume. The fix: add one shade on the dark side and one light on the lit side. Usually that's enough.

A flat red circle with a black outline — Left: the flat first pass. Right: one shade, one light, and the outline follows them.

The same sphere with shade, terminator, highlight and a recolored outline — Left: the flat first pass. Right: one shade, one light, and the outline follows them.

Mistakes in details

Over anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing means placing in-between colors on the steps of a line or curve, so it looks smoother. A few pixels here and there help a lot. Too many, and the edge gets blurry and soft, and the sprite loses its crisp pixel look. The fix: anti-alias only the longer steps on curves, and check the sprite at real size. If you can't see the difference at 1x, you don't need those pixels.

Roman's slide: an apple with a jagged edge next to the same apple with a few in-between pixels, with a zoomed-in circle — From my course slides: a few in-between pixels on the curve, shown in the zoom.

The apple with a soft half tone ring around its whole edge — Left: anti-aliasing on every edge, the apple goes blurry. Right: only where it helps.

Roman's apple with anti-aliasing in a few places only — Left: anti-aliasing on every edge, the apple goes blurry. Right: only where it helps.

Noise and stray pixels

Noise is single pixels of a different color scattered around with no reason: in a texture, inside a shape, or floating next to it. They look like dirt on the screen. The fix: group pixels into clusters with a clear shape. Sparks and particles are fine, when you put them there on purpose.

Roman's rocks with random stray pixels scattered over and around them — Left: my rocks with stray pixels thrown in. Right: every pixel belongs to a cluster.

Roman's rocks, clean — Left: my rocks with stray pixels thrown in. Right: every pixel belongs to a cluster.

Mixed pixel sizes

Some artists call these fat pixels. It's when parts of one picture are scaled up, so some pixels are bigger than others. It breaks the grid and looks off right away. The fix: never scale a sprite to make it bigger. Redraw it at the new size, and keep one pixel size in the whole scene.

Two apples on one canvas: the small one at normal size and a copy scaled up two times, with visibly bigger pixels — One canvas, two pixel sizes: the big apple is the small one scaled up. The eye sees it right away.

Words for things you want

Sel-out

Selective outline. Instead of a black outline all around, the outline takes colors from the area next to it: lighter on the lit side, darker on the shadow side. In my lessons I do it at the color step: once the shape is clear, I recolor the black outline with a darker tone of its neighbor. The object looks softer and sits better in the scene.

The apple with flat colors and a black outline — Left: black outline all around. Right: the outline takes a darker tone of its neighbor.

The apple with the outline recolored in dark red and dark green — Left: black outline all around. Right: the outline takes a darker tone of its neighbor.

Dithering

Dithering is a checkerboard or similar pattern of two colors, so from a distance they read as a color in between. It's useful for soft transitions, like a sky or a glow. Used a lot, it looks noisy and aggressive. Keep it small and on purpose.

Color ramp and hue shifting

A color ramp is the line of tones you use for one material, from the darkest shade to the brightest light. Hue shifting means the hue moves along that ramp instead of only getting darker or lighter. Shades usually lean toward a cooler or redder hue, lights toward a warmer, yellower one. That's what keeps a ramp alive instead of muddy. I start a palette from a midtone and build three to five colors around it.

✗ Only darker and lighter

✓ With a hue shift (my fire)

The same red made darker and lighter turns muddy and pink. My fire moves the hue from red to yellow. More in how to make a palette.

The finished apple: sel-out outline, a color ramp from dark red to light, a few anti-aliasing pixels — The finished apple: the outline is recolored, the reds go from dark to light, and a few anti-aliasing pixels soften the curve.

Check your own piece

Are my lines one pixel wide, with no doubles?
Do my curves change step by step, with no jaggies?
Does all the shading follow one light, not the outline?
Are my tones different shapes, not stripes?
Do I see a difference from my anti-aliasing at 1x?
Is every single pixel there on purpose?

In my interactive lessons, the "Draw your own" mode checks some of these for you. When you draw your own version from scratch, it marks the doubles in your lines and the stray pixels, and it checks that your light sits on the right side. Try it on the apple or the rocks.