A customizable side-view pixel art hero on exact 48x48 cells: 192 layers that all fit every frame of 13 animations (61 frames), with 6 weapons that each have their own attack, 16 ready-made heroes and an offline Hero Creator to mix and export your own. For action RPGs, platformers, metroidvanias and roguelites.

Licence in one line: use it in your commercial games; do not resell the files. Credit is required.

The layers

• Bodies: 8 skin tones (6 human, orc green, undead grey).
• Hair: 8 styles x 6 colours (48). Face: 3 beards x 6 colours, an eye patch, war paint (20).
• Clothes: 5 tops x 5 colours (25: tunic, shirt, vest, robe, long coat), 3 legs x 5 (15: trousers, shorts, kilt), 3 boots and shoes x 3 (9), gloves and gauntlets (6).
• Armour sets: leather (2), plate (iron, gold, dark), breastplate (iron, bronze) with pauldrons (7).
• Helmets and hats: open helm, great helm, horned helm, hood, wizard hat, crown, circlet, bandana, ranger cap (17). Capes: short, long, tattered x 5 colours (15).
• Weapons: sword, axe, spear, dagger, bow and staff x 3 finishes (18); shields: round and kite x 2 (4). Plus an effects layer: slashes, thrust lines, magic sparks, dust.

The animations

idle (4), walk (6), run (6), jump (4), slash (5), chop (5), thrust (5), stab (4), shoot (5), smash (5), cast (5), hurt (2), death (5). Each weapon has its own attack: sword slash, axe chop, spear thrust, dagger stab, bow shot (draw and release, with the arrow) and staff smash; cast works with any of them. The arrow, a magic bolt and its impact are included as sprites.

Made to drop in

• Hero Creator.html: open it offline in any browser, pick a layer per slot or a ready-made hero, watch any animation facing right or left, export the sheet at 1x-4x with an Aseprite-style JSON. Tested: its export equals the pack's own sheets pixel for pixel.
• compose.py builds any combination from the command line; layers.json has the order, the hit frames, the arrow and magic spawn points and a hit box per weapon.
• 16 ready-made heroes at 1x-4x, facing right and left: Knight, Ranger, Mage, Rogue, Barbarian, Cleric, Spearman, Paladin, Dark Knight, Witch, Viking, Pirate, Huntress, Orc Raider, Battle Princess, Squire.
• One sheet layout for everything: rows = animations, 48x48 cells, the feet on the same row in every frame.
• The meadow and text in the screenshots are previews (not included).

What it does not include

One body shape (no female or child body yet), side view only (no top-down directions), no mounts, no portraits. Left-facing sheets are mirrored. The art is drawn at 1x; 2x-4x are scaled copies.

Licence

Use and modify in personal and commercial projects. Shipping the sprites inside your game is fine. No resale or redistribution of the assets, modified or not. Credit is required: "Art by Gridwright" with a link. Not for AI training or NFTs.

How it was made

Every layer is drawn by code: one body of 3D parts seen from the side, posed per frame and shaded onto 6-tone colour ramps with a 1 px outline. Clothes recolour the body's own regions; hair, helmets, capes and weapons are rendered together with the body. The code was written with AI-assisted tools. No image generator was used, and no third-party art is included.

Isometric heroes too: Gridwright Isometric Hero Creator. Smaller 32x32 heroes and monsters: Gridwright Side-View Characters.
See our packs in a real game: Gridwright Survivors (free demo).
Make your own game: Gridwright Survivors Template.

Want another weapon, a hairstyle or a body type? Leave a comment: the pack gets updates.