The image above is a reduced-sized version, the full version is presented as an interactive pixel art illustration.

Puppeteer, vector illustration of the puppeteer; partly drawn by hand, partly generated by code.

One of the many splash pages for my former website.
After having made some pixel-art figures, such as the one sitting in the right corner at the bottom of the Splash page, I decided to make a larger, more complex pixel-art illustration. This was the first attempt.

I had to figure out how to proceed, since drawing the complete illustration from scratch was not an option. My style of pixel-art is quite labour-intensive, I therefore have to avoid/reduce the risk of making mistakes in the composition to a maximum.

It appeared to be a good solution to draw the various elements separately. Each sub-illustration could be drawn 'pixel perfect'. Once the separate illustrations are finished, they can be put together. Using separate illustrations allows to move them within the entire illustration in order to find the best composition.

The disadvantage of this approach is that a large amount of pixels drawn disappear as a result of other sub-illustrations being laid over them. However, the freedom of composition compensates for this disadvantage.

Pietà This illustration has been made after Michelangelo's masterpiece the Pietà.
Making an illustration after a famous artwork is a good exercise to learn to discover all kinds of details which are very easily overlooked at first sight.
The dimensions of the original artwork needed to be resized to fit the dimensions of my figure, which differ from the dimensions of human beings, e.g. the legs of the figure are much shorter.