The vast majority of modders for Cortex Command still draw out all of their sprites pixel-by-pixel in paint. There are a good few perks to this, not least among them is a distinctive style, but for those of you who are either just plain crap at shading, or who are looking for a more realistic look, I recommend leaving the scaling to the computer.
Instead of zooming in and struggling with drawing something in 10 pixels which you are almost certain can only be properly described in 40, simply draw what you want out on a large scale and smallify your creation in an image editor. There is no way that you will ever be able to imply all the details which even just a basic image editor is capable of portraying at such a small scale. Below is a good example.
Here we have the Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David.
I've always liked this painting, and let's say I wanted to include it in my Cortex Command bunker. Unfortunately, it's 784x450 pixels - too big to really fit in the sort of skirmish setups I usually construct. If I wanted to draw out a smaller version of this painting by hand, even at just 100 pixels which is still way too big for my bunker, it would almost certainly look like ♥♥♥♥. No one would be able to recognize it. Let's see what an image editor can do:
That's 31x18 pixels; perfect for my brain room. Take a good look at that image. You can see Socrates and all his friends. You can even slightly make out some of the strangers down the hall. Those people down the hall are literally two pixels tall, and you swear you can ♥♥♥♥ see them. YOU CAN'T BEAT THAT. Socrates is barely 7 pixels tall and you can totally make out his patriotic declaration. That's because, while you might just try to draw Socrates out real tiny with itty bitty 1 pixel limbs, your computer makes quick compromises between the background color and the object in front of it's color, essentially implying objects in the photo which are smaller than a pixel. YOU CAN'T DO THAT.
Conclusion: draw big, shrink later.
