How to Make Simple Pixelated Characters in Photoshop

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Good Day guys! Today, I'm discussing how you can make simple characters pixelated using Photoshop - this isn't the best tutorial but it's a good way to do it and can be easily adapted by beginners.

We're gonna use characters from a series from Japan called Doraemon, you may know them from watching TV - I grew up in these kind of toons and I really like the characters. In fact, this is actually a very long series because it was so successful, people just can't get enough of it.

Reference images used:

_{Image Sources: Wikia | Doraemon}

Great! Now that you've met the characters, let's get to making them pixelated or something. Do follow as well if you have Photoshop - doing it is the best way to learn it! Enjoy!

Here are the Steps:

Open your image by pressing File > Open or Ctrl+O:

Select the image you want then press Open:

We've chosen Doraemon for this tutorial, he's saying 'Hi' to you now, look:

Next, we have to set-up some important settings. Go to Edit > Preferences > General or press Ctrl+K

Under General, change Image Interpolation into "Nearest Neighbor (preserve hard edges)":

Now under Guides, grids, & slices, set the "Gridline Every" to a value of "1" and choose "Pixels" from the drop-down.

Then, go to Image > Image Size or press Alt+Ctlr+I:

Change the Width to a smaller value - for mine I will choose "50" (make sure the values are still linked) then press Ok:

This will give you a really small image:

Now, again go to Image > Image Size or press Alt+Ctlr+I:

This time change the Width to a bigger value - for mine I will choose "500" (make sure the values are still linked) then press Ok:

This will give you a larger - pixelated image:

After that, go to Filter then choose Filter Gallery (the 2nd one):

Choose Cutout and follow these settings:

You will get an image like this:

Add another layer and move it under your character's image so you can set up a background:

I'm gonna use the Gradient Tool for this:

This step gave me this image where I can see the subject better:

I did the same thing on 3 more characters and added them all into the same photo:

Also on a bubble for the text and a text layer that says 'hello'. I added those into the photo above along with a signature of my username here which gave me my final image.