Generalist and Technical CG Artist Jimmy Gunawan posts an extensive look at creating pixel art in Blender. That is to say that it is completely generative; Made without a mouse or without 3D geometry even- Simply a keyboard, mouse and python.
With this setup, we actually have Cubes for each pixel and each one of them is colored properly. We can apply Blender Rigid Body Dynamic to it like below if we like
Jimmy notes that he took inspiration from John Maeda’s Design By Numbers and describes this as an exercise in basic computer science on image processing, where the goal is to use Python to create and modify the Pixels.
Jimmy also provides the scripts with people who have no interest in the coding behind what he is doing here. The scripts will allow you to draw a pixel, or import pixel art into Blender and turn it into 3D. Check out the post for Creating Pixel Art in Blender Using Python here.
