I had the idea of this picture in my head for a while, specifically two fixed ideas. The first was that it needed to be pixel art for the IBM EGA's highest-resolution display mode, the 640×350 mode, displayed as it would be on a standard monitor of its time. The other was that it needed to be an Umbreon from Pokémon wearing a cloak. When I finally sat down and started this, it gave me the chance to show off what I could do with a larger canvas than usual.

If you're only familiar with the EGA's 320×200 mode and its famous 16-color palette, the same one that most ANSI art uses, you may be surprised to see an "EGA" picture in a palette and resolution it doesn't normally have. That's because the 640×350 mode lets you reassign any of the 16 colors from a 6-bit palette of 64 shades; and because it was rarely used outside of applications, freeware/shareware games, adventure games and simulations. It is also only this mode that lets you customize the palette; the 320×200 mode is forced into the default palette for compatibility with CGA monitors, as none of IBM's hardware designers implemented a means to check whether a monitor could accept 6-bit RGB. (IBM was a mysterious company sometimes.)

The 640×350 mode also has a particular pixel aspect ratio (PAR) on an era-appropriate monitor, as proper rendering on a 4:3 display requires a ratio of 35:48. This ruled out Pro Motion NG (which I used for my Mega Drive Shining Force-themed gift art) as my choice of app for this image, as at the time I made this, both the X and Y "Pixel Size" settings, where you would enter the PAR, only went up to 20. Aseprite, on the other hand, isn't so limited in what PARs you can use, and this Lua script by Lollie lets you set your desired PAR from a simple dialog box without having to edit a text file to add it. I ended up using Aseprite with the 64 shades pre-assembled so that I could pick which ones to use for the image's 16-color palette.

The character was constructed first, followed by the background, and as I refined and detailed the image from its initial 320×175 thumbnail, I effectively had to figure out my high-resolution drawing techniques as I went along, from how to best draw the individual leaves in the bushes in an efficient manner, to how to best detail the background trees with only two colors between their leaves and trunks, to how to accomplish dithering for various parts of the image in a natural manner (as opposed to an obviously computed one). The result ended up taking several days. Despite how long it took, I feel satisfied with how it came out.

Drawn from August 28 to September 8, 2025.