The Grave

Create simple drawings with a pixel art tool called The Grave, for beginners who need a simple program to learn and get initiated into the higher, intermediate levels of this artform.

The tool is a semi-portable app that comes compressed in a small RAR archive. The program does not need to be installed and can be accessed straight from its executable. Depending on your needs, you can run the 32/64-bit version. All drawings you export are going to be saved in the directory where the program's files are contained. Files can be exported in a PNG, JPG, or TIFF format.

Regarding the main function of this tool — drawing pixel art — it is, as expected, pretty limited in options and features. It offers the basics, as such: a standard color palette with customizable color codes (based on RGB parameters), five different levels of thickness for the brush and the eraser, and a color picker that is only available within the program's window.

Some advantages of using The Grave are: it is a free tool, it is simple and easy to understand, therefore testing/using it won't cost you much time and energy; it is small in size and can run on multiple system architectures, so you don't need a powerful machine to use it. The drawing tools are the ones that work the best — the pixel drawing action, by itself, is the most pleasant part of this program. It works smoothly, and the brush is super nice and versatile.

Some of the disadvantages of this program are: the interface's buttons, descriptions, and widgets are not well-aligned and that makes everything look super-amateurishly built, plus the file export function is a guessing game as you don't fully understand where your drawings are being sent to (until you check all possible locations).

Yes, if you are a beginner and have no reference experience. We are waiting for changes, fixes, and improvements on the developer's end, especially for the most pressing bugs (the interface). If you want to quickly try your pixel drawing skills, you could give this program a chance.