How to Draw a 16×16 Dark-Edged Basket-Hilt Steel Sword in Pixel Art
This straight sword gets its weight from two dark steel rails running beside a pale centre bevel. Below the blade, a hollow basket opens into several angular branches instead of becoming one solid block. Warm leather, copper, and gold make those branches readable at only 16×16 pixels.
The exact CC0 reference contains 98 visible pixels and 9 visible
colours. We will build it in five stages. Every coordinate uses (x, y) from
the top-left corner.
Explore the complete drawing history
Move through the saved frames before drawing. Show changes isolates the black silhouette, the paired dark blade rails, the bright steel bevel, the warm basket structure, and the final gold accents.
Step 1: outline the sword and hollow basket hilt
Use black #000000 for all 52 outline cells. Start with the three-cell cap
at x0–2 on row 0. The blade then uses two boundary cells per row:
- row 1: x0 and x3;
- row 2: x0 and x4;
- rows 3–5:
(1,3)/(5,3),(2,4)/(6,4),(3,5)/(7,5); - row 6: x4 and x8, followed by the basket cap at x11–12;
- rows 7–8: blade boundaries at x5/x9 and x6/x10, with basket walls at x11/x13;
- rows 9–10: continue the blade at x7 then x8 while the guard turns through x11 and x13–14.
Finish the lower cage with these black cells:
r11: x6–9, x12
r12: x6, x11, x13–14
r13: x7–8, x10, x12, x15
r14: x9–10, x12, x15
r15: x13–15
Keep every gap between the branches transparent. Those openings create the basket silhouette.
Step 2: build the two dark blade rails
Add deep steel #476367 to both sides of the upper blade:
(2,1), (1,2), (3,2), (2,3), (4,3), (3,4), (5,4), (4,5), (6,5), (5,6)
Switch to charcoal steel #2F4049 for the heavier blade root:
(7,6), (6,7), (8,7), (7,8), (9,8), (8,9), (10,9), (9,10)
The deep rail is ten cells long and the charcoal rail adds eight more. Both remain parallel to the main diagonal, so the blade reads as straight rather than bent.
Step 3: light the central steel bevel
Place pale steel #CEECEC at (1,1), (2,2), (3,3), (4,4), (5,5), and (6,6). These six uninterrupted cells create the brightest face of the blade.
At the root, add base steel #A5C9C9 at (7,7), then shadow steel #83A3A3 at (8,8) and (9,9). The centre now fades from light to base to shadow while
the side rails become darker at the same rate.
Step 4: weave the leather and copper guard
Add dark leather #7E4E26 at seven load-bearing positions:
(13,9), (12,10), (10,12), (12,12), (9,13), (14,13), (13,14)
Place warm copper #E0993C at six joints:
(12,7), (11,10), (10,11), (7,12), (13,13), (14,14)
Leather fills the longer spans. Copper marks the places where the guard turns, crosses the grip, or meets a lower branch.
Step 5: finish six golden hilt accents
Use gold #FBBD5D at:
(12,8), (12,9), (10,10), (11,11), (8,12), (9,12)
The upper pair brightens the knuckle bow. The middle pair connects the blade socket to the grip, and the final horizontal pair lights the lower-left sweep. Stop after these six cells so copper and gold remain visibly different.
Exact row blueprint
| Rows | Final construction |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | black blade boundaries, ten deep-steel rail cells, and five pale bevel cells |
| 6–7 | last deep rail cell, charcoal root rails, pale/base centre, and basket cap |
| 8–10 | charcoal rails around two shadow cells, upper gold bow, leather, and copper joints |
| 11 | black left sweep, copper and gold grip cells, black divider |
| 12 | copper/gold lower sweep, leather centre, and two separated black branches |
| 13–14 | leather spans and copper turns inside the two lower loops |
| 15 | three-cell black pommel cap |
Watch the dark rails meet the warm basket
The automatic player starts with all black boundaries, fills the two dark blade rails, lights the centre bevel, weaves in leather and copper, and ends with six golden accents.
Automatic drawing
Start with an empty 16×16 canvas
Draw the sword yourself
Complete the entire blade before entering the basket. Use Diff to catch any missing rail cell or accidentally filled opening, then place copper before gold so the two warm materials stay distinct.
Draw the dark-edged basket-hilt steel sword yourself
Rebuild all 98 visible pixels. Use Diff view to inspect both dark blade rails and every transparent opening inside the basket hilt.
What this sprite teaches
- Parallel value rails imply a bevel. A pale centre needs darker side bands to look metallic.
- A blade can change material value without changing direction. The rails darken only near the hilt.
- Negative space separates basket branches. Four openings keep the guard light and readable.
- Joint colours explain construction. Copper appears at turns while leather occupies longer spans.
- Gold works best as a final accent. Six carefully spaced cells guide the eye from bow to grip to lower sweep.
The source sprite is by Shade and is released under CC0 on OpenGameArt. The finished tutorial frame matches every source cell exactly.