In response to a bunch of people - Thanks for the kind words!
Drones:
Uhhh, I was just poking around in the ships.csv 'til I found something that caught my eye to copy & paste, wasn't too worried about the details. Alex is hooking up something more appropriate so it's nothing to fret about. You'll see
About posting unused/in-progress sprite work:
You'll probably get a similar answer from any artist, but I'm just not into showing all of the stuff that's still being worked on or pondered upon or floating around in my virtual sketchbook. Feels better to have what I release to the public be a product of my intent, you know? Though blog posts like this reveal a bit of the dirt and details of the process, of course, that's serving an intent as well.
(Speaking of: Did anyone notice a secret sprite for something that I "accidentally" revealed?)
Regarding the Pen tool:
This thing is seriously powerful. Have it snap to the pixel grid and you're in business for doing all kinds of weird curvy stuff with spriting! Just look at any of the high tech ships and you're probably seeing a lot of use of the pen tool.