Nearly six years ago, King Reaper, a member at a forum centered around the lego series Bionicle picked up MSPaint, and created his first sprite in an attempt to emulate other members. It was flat, misproportioned, and overall just plain ugly. He then gave up on custom spriting, turning to sprite edits instead. And there he stayed for a number of years, remaining at the same general level of skill for quite some time.
A year or two ago, he finally decided to make serious attempts at custom spriting, eventually getting to the level he is at now.
His specialty is character sprites, and he needs a good amount of work in backgrounds, but he'll get there eventually.
He is currently starting work on a project that he thinks may become his Magnum Opus, at least for a while.