Looking back at my old "AA the pixels to hell and back" era 👏
it's an aesthetic that can work for sure, but a lot of people don't pay attention to what the AA actually winds up doing to their art's implied shapes and readability. I feel like you managed to do a pretty good job here, though!
Thank you!! That was my biggest challenge when doing heavy AA hahaaa I wanted to experiment with relatively simple clusters/shading/shapes, but AA the hell out of them to see what happened 😂
in my experience, the more you AA something the more it looks like shading which can become really annoying and muddy the shapes you're trying to make. the trick is to use the most minimal amount that you can, since often bad AA can make a line look MORE jagged than before. I do a lot of squinting 😌
Jan 14, 2026 19:38Yes, that was the exact issue I had run in to!! Aside from the blurriness in some areas, it ended up making some lines look jaggier post-AA than they did pre-AA lol
I've since switched over to minimal AA and I look back and wonder how the hell I had the patience. The time it took to do 😱😱😱
