Editing Pixel art (section)

===2000s===
[[File:GBA Advance Wars.png|thumb|''Advance Wars'' (2001) on Game Boy Advance]]
The 2000s were a pivotal decade for pixel art establishing itself as an artform practiced around the world, separate from other forms of digital art. In particular, the Pixelation forum and Pixel Joint gallery are credited as the most influential English-speaking online communities, connecting pixel artists all over the world in a way that the mostly Western European demoscene movement had not.<ref>{{cite web |date=2006-09-15 |title=Art, One Click at a Time |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/15pogues-posts-2/ |access-date=2022-09-03 |website=Pogue's Posts Blog |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=2010-08-30 |title=Weekly art websites: pixel art |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/weekly-art-websites-pixel-art-2067093.html |access-date=2022-09-03 |website=The Independent |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":3"/> Pixelation was a web forum where artists could share pixel art to give and receive feedback. Its main focus was critiquing, developing skills and understanding of pixel art, more so than simply sharing art for the sake of admiration, entertainment, or competition. Pixel Joint is an online gallery where members can submit personal work and comment on other members' pixel art. It has features such as weekly challenges, a forum, a hall of fame, and a monthly top 10-pixel art competition based on member voting.

Over time, the overlapping but separate communities of Pixelation and Pixel Joint were engaged in online discourse about the nature of pixel art, inspiring widely shared tutorials and arguably contributing to a new paradigm that was different from the pixel art of the 1990s.<ref name=":4">Benjaminsson, Klas (2020). ''The Masters of Pixel Art volume 3''. Nicepixel Publications. p. 194. {{ISBN|978-91-519-3539-3}}.</ref> A major concern was to establish pixel art as its own medium and/or art form, separate from other types of digital art, such as Oekaki. In particular, highly restricted palettes (e.g. a maximum of 8 or 16 colors) were argued by some to be a defining feature of pixel art. One example is the so-called "8 color gentlemen's club", consisting of pixel artists who celebrated pixel art with 8 colors.<ref name=":5">Benjaminsson, Klas (2020). ''The Masters of Pixel Art volume 3''. Nicepixel Publications. p. 39, 40, 115. {{ISBN|978-91-519-3539-3}}.</ref> The use of transparent layers and smudging tools was also considered non-pixel art and unacceptable for the Pixel Joint gallery. Whereas the demoscene had, to a large degree, revolved around physical gatherings and groups of artists, musicians, and programmers collaborating, pixel art communities on Pixel Joint and Pixelation were based mostly on online interaction among individual artists. On Pixel Joint, pixel art made through collaboration between artists was not accepted in the gallery but considered a separate pursuit. The relatively strict ideas of what constituted acceptable pixel art, enforced by moderators on Pixel Joint, led to repeated conflict but also contributed to pixel art standing out as a separate medium at a time when many types of digital paintings were shared on the internet, on websites like DeviantArt. In particular, several prominent artists mention Cure's tutorials as significant for learning about pixel art as a separate art medium or art form.<ref name=":4"/>

After the golden age of demoscene pixel art in the 1990s, many notable pixel artists of that milieu took a break from pixel art in the 2000s - although some made an early transition to join Pixelation and Pixel Joint, such as Gas 13 and Tomic.<ref name=":5"/> While activity did decline, the demoscene continued to explore pixel art on platforms from the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly using the Commodore 64 and Atari computers.<ref>Benjaminsson, Klas (2017). ''Masters of Pixel Art volume 2''. Nicepixel Publications. p. 14, 129, 155. {{ISBN|978-91-639-0486-8}}.</ref>

Pixel doll communities grew rapidly during the 2000s, in large part due to the continued growth of forums, message boards, and chat services. With websites like the Doll Palace, Eden Enchanted, DeviantArt, and many personal websites, pixel dolls were increasingly recognized as a new art form, with public feedback, competition, tutorials, best practices, and rules of conduct. The 2000s were arguably the height of pixel doll popularity, in part because of various online communities that made use of pixel dolls for avatars and the popularity of internet forums in an age before social media. Despite this, there was relatively little interaction between the pixel doll communities and other pixel art communities such as Pixel Joint, Pixelation, or the demoscene.

In video games for computers and consoles during the 2000s, pixel art was largely abandoned in favor of more modern graphics, particularly based on 3D. Many professional game artists who had been working with pixel art either left the industry or switched to other forms of digital art. This arguably contributed to pixel art establishing itself as an independent art form, practiced mostly by independent artists rather than game industry employees. There are a few notable exceptions, such as ''[[Habbo|Habbo Hotel]]'', which inspired a great amount of isometric pixel art, and ''[[Advance Wars]]'', for [[Game Boy Advance]].