Create grid in Photoshop CS6 for pixel art?

Question

I'm a Photoshop amateur and I'm trying to make some pixel art. It'd be way easier if I had a grid as a separate layer or tool, that I can fill square after square and then remove the grid without having empty lines between the pixels.

I just completed a portrait of myself by applying a grid made with "Define Pattern" and "Fill". After finishing it, I had to eliminate the black grid, and I used the pencil-mode Brush to remove each black line, one by one, using only the edge of the Brush's square...It was a pain in the ass...

Is there any other way to do it? I know there are plugins like GuideGuide but I can't spend that amount of money...

Answer 1

Photoshop already has a perfect grid. It's the actual image pixels. Only start a new image with low enough pixel dimensions, say 100 x 100 pixels and draw with 1px pencil:

You can enlarge a final drawing with Image > Resize, only select resampling mode = Nearest neighbour to avoid blurriness.

Answer 2

I would just make it in Illustrator.

Start with using the Rectangular Grid Tool (Hold down on the Line Segment Tool to access it). Now Click in the middle of your artboard and the dialog will come up where you can choose how big you want it and how many rows and columns etc.

Once that is done, just select it and use pathfinder to break them into separate shapes.

Open Window → Pathfinder or Ctrl/Command+Shift+F9

Choose the Divide option to break up all the "pixels" (squares)

Once that's done you can Right Click → Ungroup them (Ctrl+Shift+G) and then color them as desired.

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I would leave the outlines until completed (it'll make it easier to see the boxes, but you don't have to).

Once you set stroke to none - there will not be any gaps.

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Another easy way to color them is with the Live Paint Bucket (K). See this answer, I explain how to use it in there.