Devlog #6 - Finding the Right Tool for Pixel Art

Block Agents: Building Games with AI – An ongoing series

This week I’ve been on the hunt for a free tool to help me create sprites for the block agent game. At first, I thought I could just use Blender. It’s free, powerful, and I’ve seen some seriously impressive graphics made with it. In fact, I used Blender to make the logo for this publication.

But after spending time with it, I realised it has a steep learning curve (so many ways to do things) and honestly, it’s probably overkill for the kind of 2D graphics I need. Sometimes you’ve got to prioritise practicality over power.

So, I turned my attention to pixel art. Since I only need 2D images for now, there’s no need for a full 3D tool like Blender.

With that decision made, I started exploring open-source software with a minimal learning curve. I’d rather spend time improving the actual art than fighting with the UI. At the same time, I wanted something that could help me create spritesheets and had enough tools to bring my ideas to life.

First up: Piskel.
It has a clean, browser-based interface, good community examples, and pretty much just worked out of the box. But while making my first sprite, I ran into a subtle issue, I couldn’t resize objects. So if I wanted to animate something growing or shrinking, I’d have to redraw it frame by frame. Not ideal (at least not for me).

Enter Pixelorama.
It checked all the boxes: same simplicity as Piskel, but with bonus features like ruler edges (super helpful for block alignment), and the ability to resize objects between frames. This made it way easier to build my first sprite — a collection point for my block agent.

It might not be the prettiest editor in the world, but Pixelorama has been simple, effective, and honestly fun to use. I’m looking forward to creating my next sprite.