Turn a Photo of Your Pet into a Pixel Art Character

This is my dog Appa (yes, named after the flying bison from Avatar). He's scruffy, he's weird, and I turned him into a pixel art game character. Here's how you can do the same with your pet.

What you need

• A photo of your pet (or a few, more angles help)
• A SpriteCook account (free to sign up)

That's it.

Step 1: Go to Create

Head to spritecook.ai, sign up with Google, Discord, or email, and go to the /create page.

Step 2: Upload your pet photos

Click the image upload icon in the prompt bar and attach your photos. I used three photos of Appa from different angles. Clear photos where the whole animal is visible work best.

Step 3: Write your prompt

Something simple works fine:

"Create a platformer character of my dog"

Hit generate.

Step 4: Check the result

You should get something that looks like your pet, in pixel art form.

That's Appa alright. Scruffy fur and all.

Step 5: Head to the Character Creator

Now go to /characters. This is where you turn that static sprite into an animated character. If you want more detail on this flow, there's a full walkthrough here.

Click "From Recent" and pick the sprite you just made.

Step 6: Pick your animations

Choose an animation set. For a pet character, Platformer is probably the most fun.

Select the animations you want.

And hit generate. Give it a minute or two.

Step 7: Done, your pet is a game character

Each animation comes back as its own sprite sheet. Here's the final result.

Export when you're ready

When you want to use the sprites in an actual project, export the sprite sheets from the animation results screen. They work with Unity, Godot, or any engine that supports sprite sheets.

If you need help with Unity import settings specifically, we have a separate post for that.

Try it

Grab a photo of your pet and start here. The whole thing takes a few minutes.