Yeah.. I've never much cared for these... but I get asked for them so much. I figured it wouldn't hurt to learn them. I did a lot of research and noticed a lot of sprite tag makers tend to float the focus and have a lot of negative space like that first one. I don't much care for it... I like the second one. But I didn't use a proper "sprite" but just a pic taken down to very small. But I was told it was ok and counted as a sprite.
There must be some technique I'm missing about the negative space concept. I'll make a few more and see if I work it out.

Any character suggestion?