I have tried other shapes at the pixel level, but not at the sprite level. Example: I draw from the top left pixel, draw the whole row of pixels (use the run length encoding), Then I draw the next row and so on. I haven't tried drawing the top left pixel and then drawing the to the bottom right corner, then moving up/down a diagonal row. You're right that might make it look a lot better, I will have to try it later. I stopped after I got it "good enough", because I wanted to finish the game.