problem with doubling then halving is that the software may do this without any antialiasing, so it may be better to reduce by *almost* half, but not quite, or when it's large, shift it by one pixel so when it shrinks it has to anti-alias the edges. However, yeah draw big then shrink is best, or use a 3D pacakge or DTP package (Corel/Publisher) and then export with anti-alias set on.