Not in Japan, you can see how the dithering was done in the video I link below, which was taken from promo footage of one of the most famous period Japanese pai

Not in Japan, you can see how the dithering was done in the video I link below, which was taken from promo footage of one of the most famous period Japanese paint apps for PC-98: Multi Paint System (1992, by Woody_RINN). The artist would paint two colours and then use a dither blend tool along the contrasting edge. https://youtu.be/nIdFor2WOnw?t=430 https://youtu.be/nIdFor2WOnw?t=430 I'm sure some people did it pixel-by-pixel, but not so much in Japan where the software was designed to make dithering like this very easy. You can find my big list of Japanese pixel art apps at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41136905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41136905