Sprites (Cats) CSS Animation Tutorial - How to Create Sprites (Cats)

Learn how to create the sprites (cats) CSS animation. CSS pixel art sprites using box-shadow.

AI agents use <img> tags or SVGs when you ask for pixel art. Real CSS pixel sprites use a single 3×3px element where every ‘pixel’ is a box-shadow offset — zero images, no canvas, fully scalable with transform: scale(), and themeable through 4 CSS custom properties. Walk cycles swap between different box-shadow values via class toggling. Agents never reach for this technique because they don’t have the pixel coordinates memorized.

Copy and paste this sprites (cats) CSS code into your AI coding agent (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor) for instant implementation.

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Instructions you can copy-paste right into your AI coding agent.

Sprites (Cats)

AI agents use <img> tags or SVGs when you ask for pixel art. Real CSS pixel sprites use a single 3×3px element where every ‘pixel’ is a box-shadow offset — zero images, no canvas, fully scalable with transform: scale(), and themeable through 4 CSS custom properties. Walk cycles swap between different box-shadow values via class toggling. Agents never reach for this technique because they don’t have the pixel coordinates memorized.

Examples

Pure CSS Pixel Art
4 CSS variables per cat • box-shadow sprites • zero images