Draw your first sprite in Dottie on Mac

New to pixel art, or just to Dottie? This walkthrough takes about five minutes and touches every part of the app you’ll use daily.

1. Create a small canvas

Choose File > New Command+N. In the New Document sheet, pick the Sprite (16×16) preset and a Transparent background, then click Create. Small canvases are the best place to learn—every pixel counts, and mistakes are cheap.

Press Command+0 to zoom the canvas to fit the window.

2. Pick a palette

Click the palette list button in the sidebar and choose a small preset—Playdate (2 colours) or GB Studio (4 colours) keep decisions simple. Click a colour to make it your primary.

3. Outline a shape

Select the Pencil N with brush size 1 and draw the outline of something simple—a mushroom, a heart, a face. Useful helpers:

Clicked a pixel by mistake? Click it again—the Pencil erases pixels that already have your colour.
Shift-click to connect two points with a straight line.
Turn on Tools > Symmetry > Horizontal and draw only the left half—Dottie mirrors the right half live.
Command+Z undoes any step.

4. Fill and shade

Switch to the Fill tool K, pick a colour, and click inside the outline to flood it.
For shading, set the primary colour to your fill colour and the secondary to a darker shade, then set the Dither control to around 50% and paint the shadowed side with the Pen P—the checkerboard blend reads as a mid-tone at a distance.

5. Check it at actual size

Pixel art is judged small. Choose Window > New Preview Window Option+Command+P to float a live 1× preview beside your zoomed-in canvas while you fine-tune.

6. Save and export

Save the document Command+S to keep layers and palette editable, then choose File > Export as Image Command+E and export a PNG to use anywhere.

Tip From here, try duplicating the layer Shift+Command+D and nudging a few pixels to make a two-frame animation—press play in the preview to see it move.