I’ve been making pixel art for a couple years now, mainly focusing on athletes I admire or enjoy following, and celebrating them with pixel art or animations. This has included both current athletes, as well as those from past eras. It’s been a fun and rewarding project that lets me explore the culture of sports through the lens of the video games I grew up playing as a kid.

One of my favorite athletes ever is Jackie Robinson. I’m not old enough to have seen him play, but I know how electrifying an athlete he was. His major league stats alone are incredible, especially given that he didn’t even join the majors until he was 28, which is considered “old” by today’s standards. This is especially incredible given the adversity he faced daily from his peers. He went to work every day, was called horrible things, was told he didn’t belong, and still managed to be one of the best of all time.

I wanted to make something iconic that celebrated Jackie in pixels, which I figured wasn’t a combination that had been explored much, if at all. When I thought of Jackie, I thought of him stealing home, which is a rare and exciting feat in baseball, and something he did 19 times in his career. Here is the composition I came up with.

I’m going to share the process of creating this piece in the posts below.