Knightsundere! We were deep into a PMC browsing session when we stumbled across an interesting blog, The Chronicles of the Palette Battle League (PBL) created by them. Knight's 9 year anniversary is coming up next week, so they've been around since the beginning of the longest running non-official tournament known as PBL, participating in several seasons and bringing in quite a few wins as well! Though the blog is old, it explains the history of the tournament which is an interesting story. Knights also created this data sheet a couple of years back that analyzes all top 20 skin finalists, organizing results into several different categories. We encourage you to check it out, it's quite interesting!

Knight's has also written several insightful blogs, and has participated in many contests! Here are a couple of their winning PBL skins:

The Old Knight of Gibraltar PBL Season 4 Winner

Cyber Dragon PBL Season 3 Winner

Do you still play Minecraft?

Not currently. Waiting until I finish my WIP texture pack.


How has Minecraft influenced you in real life?

Hugely. Interest in skinning progressed to interest in pixel art, which is my main marketable skill/job these days. Marketplace itself, via skinning, provides the majority of my income currently. The time I spent on here is responsible for a lot of maturing and growing up. Ultimately, I'm a much different person due to Minecraft o:


When you were most active on PMC, who inspired you and why?

2013-2016. When I was a teen I had a somewhat unhealthy obsession with remaining "original" (still have that, a little bit, not terrible in small doses though), so I tried as hard as I could not to be directly associated to a particular style. I ended up sticking to primarily knights/robots, which kinda became my thing, and this technique of 1x3 pixel strips with a central highlight or dark that sorta has a name, "sandwiching". I overused the heck out of that and that was my style.


The last contest you hosted was 4 years ago. Any plans to host another?

I'd love to be of assistance but I'm sure there are plenty of people who actually participate in the site these days that'd also jump at the opportunity, lol.

What would you consider your biggest accomplishment during your time on Planet Minecraft? My Orion skin. If I'm the owner of my own style, then that is the best style-adherent skin within my style. Afterwards I didn't make any forward progress in skin quality until I started getting more blendy with the colors.

Browsing through your submissions, there’s a gradual improvement in your skins. Were there any blogs, art classes, etc that you read or took that contributed to this or was it mostly practice?

I don't really do practice (not a brag, it's a serious flaw) because I'm a super impatient person when it comes to skill development. For me personally, I just try to absorb as much "good art" as I can, look closely at why I like it/what's good about it, and then look for those qualities in my own work. I think with skins they just benefited from me getting better at art in general, so my color theory got better, my compositions/balancing got better, my designs got better... most importantly though my standards for myself were raised.

Though, when you consider I've been making skins on and off for 8 years, at some point it is practice, yeah.


We see you’re quite the pixel artist. Does skin creating and pixel art go hand-in-hand? Did you create skins before you started creating pixel art?

es and no, and yes. Skins CAN run parallel to pixel art but I'll swear up and down that a lot of the skills aren't transferable. Color theory is, for sure, but that's all art. None of the techniques in traditional skinning styles are applicable to pixel art though - blending, shading, depth techniques are all designed for use on an 8x8 square with limitations wholly unlike any normal art "canvas". Paddy and peytonisgreat are the two primary exceptions to this though, because they started with pixel art before coming over to skinning, and it shows in how they made their skins.


Share with us your favorite piece of art (of any medium) you’ve ever created.

Unfortunately my favorite piece is currently WIP, but this from last year is probably still 2nd.

Tell us what your favorite skin is you’ve ever created and why. Cignus. It was a skin that I had the idea for for years, and wasn't able to make to the level of quality that I wanted, until this point. I'd tried a few times so this was pretty huge for me. I regard it as the "coolest" skin I've ever made as well.

You used to be heavily involved with PBL, you even wrote a blog about the history of PBL. Is there a season or moment of PBL that stands out to you?

I was a total pain in the butt for quite a few years about how I was the only person to win two PBL seasons in a row. I think PureNerd eventually spoiled that party though, lmao.


In your blog Knight’s Weekly Standup from 7 years ago, you mention you listen to dubstep - do you still listen to dubstep? If yes, who is your favorite artist?

Always hard to send a single track of music as a recommendation, but this has been my mainstay for that for half a decade now, so here you go Trevor Something - Come Back Down.


On the same blog, you mention your hands (and feet) basically have a mind of their own when you listen to this genre of music. Has this subsided over the years?

Oh god you did read the whole thing D::::


You’re an artist, a comedian, a writer, and seem to be insightful. We’re curious to know what career path you’ve chosen, if any - or what your dream job is.

Comedian 8U I only keep those early teen year blogs up as a reminder of how far I've come, ew ew ew.

Pixel artist is the short and simple answer. Game direction is the goal, and if everything goes swimmingly over the next half a year or so, I should be there c:


Favorite game at the moment?

Hyper Light Drifter, Bloodborne, and Darkest Dungeon occupy my top 3 spots for best games all time and that hasn't shifted since whichever one released most recently.


Favorite food?

I make these really bomb BLT's without lettuce.


Anything you’d like to add?

If you recognize me or know me please feel free to send me a message on Discord (Knightsundere#1050), I wouldn't mind people to talk to :')