Pixel Art Life Drain: Pixel art life drain: a crimson tether links the enemy to the caster and blood-red orbs with ribbon tails flow along it while the enemy pulses red, then the stolen life bursts on the caster in a ring of sparkles.

Pixel Art Life Drain

Pixel art life drain: a crimson tether links the enemy to the caster and blood-red orbs with ribbon tails flow along it while the enemy pulses red, then the stolen life bursts on the caster in a ring of sparkles. Use it for lifesteal, vampire and blood magic spells in RPGs; it plays once, then loops.

Pixel Art Life Drain is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 2.4 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 384 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 10 particle emitters and 2 glowing strokes. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds. Some particles draw ribbon trails.

Colour

Recolours the preview and the free downloads.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 72 frames at 30 fps. Use it in commercial games, no credit needed.

Licence: use it in any project, including paid commercial games such as a game sold on Steam. There is no per-project licence to buy and no credit needed. Terms.

Roblox: the download is a flipbook for a ParticleEmitter. Set FlipbookLayout to Grid8x8, FlipbookMode to OneShot and Lifetime to 2.4, then emit one particle per cycle. Roblox setup.

REMIX WITH AI

Try:

Left empty, it just opens in the agent, free. Each change is one AI build, and you start with free builds.

Engine data for Unity, Godot, GameMaker and Aseprite comes with a plan: open it in the studio.

OPEN IN THE STUDIO

Change the colours, timing or size, or export for Unity, Godot 4, GameMaker, Phaser, PixiJS and Aseprite.

Try variations: new colours, motion and shapes of this effect, free in the studio.

FRAME BY FRAME

8 evenly spaced moments across the 2.4 s loop.

Pixel Art Life Drain at 8 moments, from 0 s to 2.1 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Life Drain is pixel art, drawn at 3x pixels so it sits on the same grid as your sprites, and built from 10 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: glowing strokes traced along shapes, magnets, ribbon trails, paths and post filters (bloom). 4 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 2.4 s, and 6 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 1.68 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To change its colour, select "Flash glow" in the studio and edit Colour A and Colour B. Size on the same layer sets how big its particles are. Pixel size in the Pixel art panel sets how chunky it looks. The colour swatches by the downloads recolour every layer at once.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Victim lightparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.12 s. Colour: red.
  2. Caster lightparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.42 s. Colour: red.
  3. Tetherstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a path. Its start and end are keyframed, so it writes itself on and off. It wobbles like unstable energy.
  4. Life orbsparticles / additiveA stream of ribbon trails, its rate keyframed over the loop. They travel along a path. Colour runs from red to pale red over each life.
  5. Orb glowparticles / additiveA stream of soft glows, its rate keyframed over the loop. They travel along a path. Colour: red.
  6. Orb headsparticles / additiveA stream of dots, its rate keyframed over the loop. They travel along a path. Colours range between white and pale red.
  7. Victim motesparticles / additiveA stream of pixels across a box, its rate keyframed over the loop. They are pulled toward a magnet. Colour runs from pale red to red over each life.
  8. Hand glowparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.42 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: red.
  9. Absorb ringstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle.
  10. Healing sparklesparticles / additiveOne burst of 18 sparks across a box at 1.68 s. They swell and then shrink away and slow down with drag. Colour runs from white to red over each life.

2 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
2.4 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, pixel art at 3x
Layers
10 emitters and 2 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
redwhitepale red
Sprites
Heroes by SpriteLab micro mode (Free to use)
Tags
pixel art, life drain, drain, vampire, lifesteal, blood magic, spell

USING IT IN YOUR GAME

Phaser, PixiJS
The PNG sheet is a plain grid of frames that both can slice. A TexturePacker JSON atlas comes with a plan, from the studio.
Unity
Import the PNG sheet as a Sprite with Mode set to Multiple and slice it, or open the effect in the studio for a ready-made grid.
Godot 4, GameMaker, Aseprite
Open it in the studio and pick your engine in Export: with a plan, it writes the files that engine imports.
Web and chat
The GIF plays anywhere; the APNG keeps soft edges on any background.
Blend mode
This effect is made of light. For the same glow in your game, draw the sprite with additive blending, or export it on black from the studio for additive shaders.

Step by step: Unity, Godot 4, Roblox, GameMaker, Phaser and PixiJS, Aseprite, Web games (live runtime). Drawn with additive blending: see glow effects without a black box.

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