Create a sprite document
Set-up mistakes are expensive to undo: a canvas that is the wrong size means redrawing, and a palette chosen after the art means repainting. Get these four things right and the rest of the work is drawing.
Procedure
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preflight. Stop if not ready. -
Create the canvas.
sprite_manage op="new" width=32 height=32 colorMode="rgb"- Use RGB unless the user wants hard palette enforcement at the file level. Indexed mode makes the palette a hard constraint Aseprite itself enforces — good for a strict retro target, awkward for iteration.
- Size to the game's grid if there is one: a 16×16 tile game wants character sprites that are a multiple of 16 in at least one dimension.
- Leave headroom. A 32×32 canvas for a 28px-tall character gives room for a weapon raise or a jump squash without a later canvas resize.
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Set the palette before drawing.
palette op="preset" preset="pico8" replace=trueOr build one:
palette op="ramp" base="#c04030" steps=5per material. Seerules://01-palette-and-color. -
Build the layer structure in one batch, so it is one undo step:
layer batch=[ {op:"create", name:"sketch"}, {op:"create", name:"base"}, {op:"create", name:"shading"}, {op:"create", name:"outline"}, ]For anything that will be animated, build the full character rig instead — see
aseprite:rig. Splitting baked pixels apart later is real work. -
Save immediately, so the user has a file and undo has an anchor:
sprite_manage op="save_as" path="…/knight.aseprite"Ask where, or put it beside whatever project the user is working in.
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Confirm what you made in one line: size, mode, palette, layers.
Then
aseprite:draw to block in the art.
Related
rules://01-palette-and-color, rules://06-layers-and-rigging.
