dpaint: do they paint on it?

[rvo_nl]

please check:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art
http://www.exotica.org.uk/mirrors/gfxzone/frames.html
http://amiga.lychesis.net/
http://c64pixels.com/main.php

you will find your answers somewhere in there

in short, especially in the eighties and early nineties, most of this artwork is plain pixel art. later on people started 'experimenting' more with scanned pictures, photoshop etc. its amazing to see what early amiga demosceners could produce, just by using dpaint. that sort of.. devotion is quite uncommon these days, unfortunately.