I designed this 16x16 pixel font to facilitate texturing and dithering for pixel artists. Not every piece of art software has tools designed for texturing/dithering, and loading lots of custom brushes for the purpose can slow one's software way down as well. This font was made to attempt to solve these problems. Now you can dither, shade, and texture by typing! Every glyph repeats as a seamless texture both horizontally and vertically.
The name comes from my emulator/game, "Virtua Gremlin". Although these patterns weren't in the game (it used 9x9 tiles, not 16x16), many of the patterns here are based on that earlier work. "Skins" is a reference to graphical skins, of course. :D
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USAGE GUIDE
A-Z = textures
a-z = dithering/shading patterns
0-9 = scanlines
The rest is sort of a mishmash... I'll organize it better once I have enough glyphs to warrant a good classification system...
Have an idea for a pattern? Want to see a particular sprite or aesthetic included? Let me know :D
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Original size: 12pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
Tip: View this in the Character Map so you can more easily grab and paste glyphs when designing!
See also: Gremlin Skins HD
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Welcome to Tridisaster. It's ALL TRIANGLES, ALL THE TIME. Welcome to Triangle Channel.
Mathematical operators have a distinctive "open" look to help set them apart. There are few exceptions (like ^) because these symbols are used in many non-math contexts.
The only one I'm not sure about at this point is the comma, which works fine for my purposes, but probably makes this font a pain for anyone who tries to read/write at length with it. XD
All Basic Latin is kerned for both cases! Use a mixed case to create weird alien scaffolding! Inverted ",." can be found on "µ¶".
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A 117-segment display made to have a more "mosaic" look. Try using this one at odd sizes, especially with antialiasing off! The resulting distortions occur in a consistent way which leads to many new uses for the font.
Original size: 38pt
A tear-off ticket design. I went for the slightly gaudy look which is associated with carnivals and arcades.
While making this I also got the idea for a font which looks like a 35mm reel with little scenes on each segment...
Original size: 14.25pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
A multi-line design which is slightly reminescent of mazes/fingerprints. It's not designed to create functional mazes, but it is somewhat capable!
"Absinthelyric Print" is an anagram for "Labyrinthine Script".
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Original size: 11.25pt. Use multiples of this value for pixel perfection. (If you use antialiasing, it will look perfect at most any size.)
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Design rules:
1. Square bricks and 90-degree angles only.
2. Alphabetic glyphs must have open terminals; numerals and symbols must have closed terminals. Letters which do not terminate (D,O, etc.) must be broken so that they terminate.
3. Glyphs must fill the 15x15 grid.
4. Ligatures and combinatorial glyphs must fit into one letter's space.
5. Draw from the outside in.
Yet another polygonal font, this time a diamond. :^)
This one was also designed to combine symmetry and asymmetry. Some letters have central lines and some have offset lines. In this way a greater variety of designs was made possible.
Alternate take on Nirvanite, this time with bullseyes rather than solid circles as the large segments.
This one is a lot more organic than its predecessor, but also a lot more confusing. Looks like clusters of alien tadpole eggs to me!
This is a clone of Nirvanite10x10 fantasy- and RPG-related icons. The bigger they are, the better they look!
This is finished! I'm happy to hear out and possibly implement others' suggestions, though.
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A - Knight's Blade
B - Warrior's Shield
C - Paladin's Helmet
D - Samurai's Armour
E - Wizard's Potion
F - Thief's Keys
G - Monk's Rosary
H - Dwarf's Pickaxe
I - Necromancer's Scroll
J - Sorceress' Staff
K - Shaman's Totem (Spider)
L - Ninja's Glove
M - Assassin's Bow
N - Cleric's Holy Symbol
O - Viking's Hammer
P - Bandit's Buckler
Q - Barbarian's Axe
R - Druid's Mandrake
S - Priest's Altar
T - Jester's Crowns
U - Warlock's Book of Shadows
V - Witch's Lantern
W - Dancer's Lei
X - Hypnotist's Charm
Y - Miner's Hat
Z - Explorer's Map
a - Trapper's Caltrops
b - Demolitionist's Arsenal
c - Vampire Hunter's Boomerang
d - Herbalist's Bag
e - Archaeologist's Fossil
f - Goblin's War Trumpet
g - Gourmand's Platter
h - Musician's Harp
i - Gladiator's Net
j - Oracle's Beads
k - Bard's Singing Sword
l - Spelunker's Rope
m - Merchant's Abacus
n - Gambler's Dice
o - Siege Operator's Catapult
p - Aztec's Warclub (Macuahuitl)
q - Drunken Master's Jug
r - Fighter's Headband
s - Judge's Gavel
t - Guru's Meditation Balls
u - Dungeoneer's Folding Ladder
v - Moneychanger's Scales
w - Cultist's Altar
x - Magician's Hat
y - Friar's Cross
z - Fisher's Harpoon
0 - Skeleton
1 - Kobold
2 - Goblin
3 - Bone Dragon
4 - Pumpkin Head
5 - Slime
6 - Vampire
7 - Imp
8 - Dragon
9 - Mimic
. - Chest
, - Pile of Loot
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See also: Donjon16, Militaricons, Travelicons
A simple 16x16 terrain tileset. This is designed to work in color AND in monochrome.
In making this, I condensed all known biomes (terrestrial, aquatic, air, space, manmade, transitional) into 26 tiles. This allows a given tile to define multiple different types of areas/terrain, and it allows you to come up with your own meanings for these tiles, rather than having to memorize a legend. Some of the tiles are obvious and some are not; this is by design.
A-Z, a-z = terrain
0-9, 0-9+SHIFT = map borders/frame
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Original size: 12pt
Map Template:
.0123456789
!,,,,,,,,,,
@,,,,,,,,,,
#,,,,,,,,,,
$,,,,,,,,,,
%,,,,,,,,,,
^,,,,,,,,,,
&,,,,,,,,,,
*,,,,,,,,,,
(,,,,,,,,,,
),,,,,,,,,,
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See also:Donjon 16, Gremlin Skins
Some kind of great big ol' chain.
In retrospect, I think it looks like a jewelry chain from a dwarven civilization. Perhaps the hypothetical jeweler cut and ground the stones in an imitation of some dwarven font!
When glyphs are used in isolation, they somewhat resemble carved signets or seals. Increasing the letter spacing allows you to create a variation of the design. (This is something that must be done in-software since the font will render as monospaced by default.)
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12SEP2018: Added lowercase... the low resolution combined with the design method make it very difficult to render distinctive lowercase versions of every letter, but I'll keep working on it. There's a lot of similarity between pairs like S/5, Z/2, etc., so this font is most effectively used in forms of writing wherein context suffices to inform the reader as to the identity of each glyph (lists, prose, and technical writings). If you want to use this in a password system or something, I recommend using one case's glyphs only.
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Design Rules:
1. Negative spaces will be areas of 0.5 bricks' effective length or width.
2. Negative spaces may exceed the 0.5 measurement only by increments of 0.5 and in only one dimension at a time.
3. Glyphs will fill their framed canvasses to the greatest extent possible while adhering to the other rules.
A space-esque design made for a friend! The angular counters give this a simplified geometry which makes it easy to read despite its looks. Works well for small- or large-scale applications - chat, terminals, logos, and more. Supports Dutch, English, and Greek!
The original was cloned off and preserved elsewhere. The version you see here has centered glyphs.
My attempt at a font which uses only one grid square per glyph. I guess this is the Fontstruct equivalent of pixel art...?
As an extra challenge I decided to use no curved bricks. (This rule was since broken to add © and ®).
Even better letterforms could be created by compositing the entire thing. However, the goal here was to do what I could with the existing bricks. As such, only #?![]{}¹²³ make use of composites.
Version 2.6
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Inspired by a comment by jonrgrover.
I built diamonds sized according to the Fibonacci series, then made a segmented display out of them. The design was then carved away to make the glyphs you see here. I used the members 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8. These sizes proved most feasible to work with in this sort of arrangement.
I gave the terminals a flared appearance which I think makes the glyphs look slightly Celtic. The design also makes me think of beach sand and things found on the beach - shells, pretty rocks, and so on.
Experimental 24-segment display or massive monochrome Mondrian matrix. Pixel compatible!
The thinking behind this one was that with incongruously sized segments arranged in the proper way, I would create a design which was effectively 5x5, but which accomodated more glyphs than 5x5 usually does. Negative space is incorporated into the structure of many glyphs, though not enough to classify this as an IVO design.
"Qualtron" is the name of an imaginary entity that a friend believed in - a being meant to represent the result of "a mathematical equation that can rule the universe". I didn't inquire further about it... :D
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Design Rules:
1. Segments can have interior length/width of 2 or 5.
2. The central 2x2 square must always remain open.
3. Square bricks and 90-degree angles only.
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Original size: 20.75pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
An attempt to produce a low-resolution pixel font which generates mazes from arbitrary strings of text. It requires the use of negative line spacing (available only to certain software) to look right without hand-editing.
The mazes it produces aren't the best, but they are definitely interesting! I might just call this a cipher and be done with it...
An experimental 12-segment display, and my 100th published Fontstruction. It's the calculator of yesterday's future!
This one belongs to a small family called Calculatrix.
This font is monospaced to ensure segments are always where they "should" be (as if the text were printed on one giant display).
An experiment to see how good of a hex grid I could make with just the hex brick. Answer: Pretty good!
(Use _ for the blank grid.)
This is capable of some pretty convincing "TV static" type effects, too!
87.10 degree slanted font for Italicized italic italic Ultra-Italic italic Italian italics. Thanks for making me design a whole family of fonts that hurt my eyes, Zuloph. :P
After I made RC Vertigo, Zu said he could still read it. I began to create increasingly slanted designs, and this one was finally the one he couldn't read.
No symbols/numerals for this one. I consider it to be machine-readable only at this point...
A stencil version of RC Dynamite made for laser cutting! Could also be an LCD Segment design with slight modification...
This is a clone of RC DynamiteA monospaced version of Barcade Brawl that has been modified to work well as a roguelike font. Not every glyph is centered yet, but all the Basic Latin and More Latin ones are.
A few glyphs (such as #) are modified to break the matrix so that they link together. This is because these glyphs are used to form continuous walls and other structures.
Note also that this design uses a 7x7px matrix which is monospaced at 8px to create 8x7 tiles. I have placed a stray pixel on an unused glyph to make 1px of extra line spacing occur so that the final tiles are 8x8. The preview here onsite adds another px, so it looks slightly out of square. The sample below does too, because it was made before this fix was implemented.
I was working on another spinoff of this that was high-resolution rather than pixel, but since this font has the same LC and UC, I might transplant those glyphs to this font as well to make it as multifunctional as possible. That will more than double the work of making an already big font, though, so it will depend on whether this font gets used by others. A few game developers already use the original "Barcade Brawl" so there is a possibility...
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Original size: 5.25pt (use multiples of this size for pixel perfection)
This is a clone of Barcade BrawlAnother experimental font for texturing work. This one uses only an 8x8 grid, but since it isn't pixel art, a much greater variety of patterns is possible. Every glyph in the font repeats as a seamless texture in both directions.
See also:Gremlin Skins (pixel version)
Fontstruct's first vacuum tube font!
This is a design inspired by Nixie tubes. Since these "tubes" are iconographic, they could theoretically represent 12AX7s, 6L6s, KT88s, or whatever tube/valve you wanted. Feel free to clone and build on this concept.
A chimera (fusion) which combines inline-versus-outline, maze, Gemscript, and other techniques to produce a timeless look.
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Original size: 6.75pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
Design Rules:
1. Square bricks only.
2. A 1px soft border of negative space must exist between lines whenever possible.
3. Glyphs must fill the 9x9 grid to the greatest extent possible given the rounded style.
4. The set of glyphs shall be a heterogeneous mix of symmetrical and asymmetrical forms.
5. Negative space will replace positive in any situation wherein the small grid size or the geometry of a letterform would be detrimental to the chosen style. This includes all situations where any shape lacks at least a soft 1px border of negative space around it.
See also: Terran Pixelcruiser
- NOTES -
Use lower case to get Modern Gryzildan and UPPER CASE for Royal Gryzildan. Hold Shift while typing numerals/symbols to get the Royal ones.
These scripts do not canonically appear together on any in-universe writing. Gryzil writing is always written entirely in one script or the other. But, feel free to use this as you wish.
- DESCRIPTION -
This font contains two scripts of the Gryzil, Brer Brah's people, who are from various video games and stories of mine. Gryzil are a sapient bear-people that live on/near beaches in the continent of Skina on planet Fyromr. They have dull greenish fur, can speak, read, write and use tools, walk bipedally, and have beer fermentation chambers for stomachs. They appear in ESOS, Trap Farmer Brer Brah, and Anime Girls vs. The Cavemen.
The written language of these creatures is designed to be without subtlety. Most of the subtlety of Gryzil communication is gestural. For instance, quotations do not exist in Gryzil writing. There can be a record that someone said something, but only when a Gryzil who heard it firsthand speaks of it is there understood to be a quotation - the rest is simply hearsay.
This font is made as an attempt to anglicize the Gryzildan language - not to write it natively. Hence, it has some resemblance to Latin. But in fact these symbols all represent different gestures as well as different rasping, stamping, growling, and ingressive sounds which are unknown within Earth humans' formalized language studies. Nonetheless, you can write authentic Gryzildan with this. Read the Chalcedony-Bound Manual found in any of the games in which Gryzildan is used.
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Original size: 5.25pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
"Mythical Bursts" is an anagram of "Bismuth Crystal". The design is inspired by said crystals as well as Mayan/Aztec carvings (or at least, the comparatively simple forms they have in popular media) and sgraffito art in which a surface is scratched off to reveal a contrasting material underneath.
12SEP2018: I've edited every glyph in order to disconnect the letterforms from their enclosing shapes. This makes the font much more readable and consistent.
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Original size: 42pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)