Some of you may have noticed a certain fad that swept through devArt last summer. I knew I had to try it when it came out, but I've only just finished. Pixel art looked like fun -- much less becoming an arcade-game character! Oddly enough, I still consider pixelling fun, even after so many hours (I lost count) of painstakingly placing each little square of color. It's hypnotic, almost -- certainly addictive. I may end up doing some smaller sprites now that my first belated contribution is finally online.

The character displayed above isn't the Alexandra-Sasha-Maia Zalmaki that I so often use as my avatar... I couldn't figure out how to put three forms into one static sprite without displaying them side-by-side. Instead we have plain old human me, strolling along with an enormous Wacom stylus over her shoulders and phantom-dreams of dragons, wings, and galaxies swirling around her. I rather like it.

The stats are also somewhat considered. I have zero Attack because a) I'm a pacifist, and b) I doubt I could hit anything hard enough to hurt anyway. Besides, what kind of weapon is an outsized grip-pen? When this character is forced to fight -- which is probably rare enough, considering the odd kind of arcade game they'd make based on my life -- her attacks do only knockback, keeping the opponent off her long enough for her special attacks to wear him down. Those don't do actual damage either: rather, they wear down an opponent's will until he can no longer fight. I'd rather persuade my opponent not to come to blows. Instead of damage, I rely on Speed and Special; my Will is average because, well, my willpower is average.

Oh, and the first person who can tell me (accurately) why the flower in the title is a pansy gets a bit of giftart!

If nothing else, this was a delightful little exercise... and I've learned new respect for the pixel artists out there. Click on, guys -- you're something else.

Tools: Wacom tablet, Elements 2, somewhere around fifteen hours but I've lost count
(c) 2007 ~Zalmaki
Pixel ID fad started with =scrotumnose