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Start drawing

Your first Pixl

Start a drawing, choose its size and colours, save it, and find it again.

Use Pixl to make an image one pixel at a time. A 32 × 32 drawing is a useful first project: it gives you enough room for a small tree, badge or face without a large canvas to fill.

Open Pixl Studio

Sign in to Glob Social. Expand Home and choose Pixl Studio. Opening the editor can resume a recent unfinished drawing.

To make artwork at a particular place, right-click a canvas you may add to and choose Create Pixl. When you save that drawing, Glob also places it where you opened the menu. To draw a node’s picture, use its picture controls and choose Draw new….

The drawing opens over a dimmed canvas. The tool rail and side panel remain usable. Clicking the dimmed area does not dismiss the editor. Use Close or the close icon when you want to leave.

Choose a starting point

To start a fresh drawing, open Media, press the plus labelled Add media, then choose New Pixl. On a phone, New in the editor’s top row opens the same choices.

New Pixl offers Blank, Avatar / profile, Cursor, Emoji and Node face where those choices fit how you opened the editor. A blank drawing can be 16, 32, 64 or 128 pixels square. Cursor and emoji drawings use 16 or 32.

Enter a Name (optional) if you want to recognise the drawing later. Names can be up to 120 characters. Choose Create.

The avatar and node-face choices show a round crop guide. The drawing itself stays square. Pixels in the dimmed corners can still be painted, but those corners do not show when the image is clipped to a circle.

Draw a small tree

  1. Choose Pencil, or press B while the drawing has focus.
  2. Choose a brown primary colour in the Palette card. Draw a short trunk.
  3. Choose green and draw the leaves. The primary colour starts green in a new draft, so you can also begin with the leaves.
  4. Use Eraser (E) to remove pixels. Right-click the Pencil or Eraser tool to choose its size and shape.
  5. Use Undo if a stroke goes wrong. Each completed stroke is one step.

The left mouse button uses the primary colour. The right mouse button uses the secondary colour, which starts transparent. Press X to swap them. On a touch screen, choose the colour and draw with your finger or pen.

The zoom control sits above the bottom dock. Its minus and plus buttons change the view. Press its percentage to fit the drawing into the available space. Zoom changes how large pixels look while you work; it does not change the saved image’s dimensions.

Save and find it again

For an ordinary drawing, choose Save, or press Ctrl+S (Command+S on a Mac). The editor stays open. The next save updates the same Pixl. Save as new Pixl in the Pixl side-panel tab makes a separate artwork instead.

If you opened the editor for a placement, avatar, cursor or node picture, saving also performs that action and can close the editor. A public use may ask how others can use the artwork. Read that choice before continuing: releasing a free asset is permanent.

Saved drawings appear in Media, under Pixls, and in My Pixls inside the editor. Working drafts open from Drafts on the bottom Pixl card. A draft and a saved Pixl are different: you can return to a draft without having published a finished version.

If saving fails, leave the editor open and read its message. Draft recovery explains what is kept and what to do before leaving.