Plan a sprite before drawing it

A request like "draw me a knight sprite" contains none of the decisions that determine whether the result is usable. Guessing them and drawing anyway wastes the user's time and yours. Five questions, one answer, then draw.

Decision	Why it cannot be deferred	Reasonable default
Canvas size	Determines how much can be shown at all	32×32 for a character
Palette	Choosing it later means repainting	PICO-8 (16 colours)
View	Side-on, top-down and 3⁄4 are different drawings	3⁄4
Light direction	Must be fixed before any shading	Upper-left
Outline	Changes every edge in the sprite	Selective, dark-coloured
Destination	A game engine wants tags and a sheet	Ask

1. preflight. If not ready, stop and tell the user — nothing below works without a live Aseprite.

2. Read what already exists. If a sprite is open, sprite_info it. The user's existing canvas size and palette usually answer half the questions, and matching an existing project's style is almost always what they want.

3. Draft the brief. Fill the table above from what the user said plus the defaults. Do not ask about things you can reasonably infer — "a Game Boy style knight" has already told you the palette and the size range.

4. Put it to the user in one message, as decisions rather than questions:

   32×32, PICO-8 palette, 3⁄4 view, light from upper-left, selective dark outline. Knight in plate with a sword, facing camera. Say if any of that is wrong — otherwise I'll start.

   One round trip, not five. If they said nothing about a detail, they probably do not care about it.

   When the request is something new — a character, a prop, an animation — aseprite:concept follows, and its offer goes in this same message: the decisions above, then the image-model prompt in one code block, then the choice between sending references and continuing without. The user answers once. If they correct a decision, fix the prompt to match before they copy it.

5. Ask only what genuinely blocks you. If the sprite is for a specific game and you do not know its tile size, that one is worth asking. Light direction is not.

6. Record the brief in your working notes and hold to it. Every later decision either follows from the brief or is a mistake.

aseprite:concept for anything drawn from scratch — its offer is already in the message above. Then aseprite:new to create the document, or aseprite:draw if a suitable sprite is already open.

rules://00-core-principles for what the sizes buy you. rules://03-silhouette-and-form for view and proportion. rules://30-proportions-by-size and rules://14-readability-and-scale for what each canvas size can hold; rules://90-platform-styles when the user names a console or era.