Was hoping I could get some suggestions for good (and preferably cheap to free) drawing programs that are good for spriting. My first attempts where in MS Paint and Gimp (which I'm told is not great for pixel level art)

What do you all use?

eh i'm not very picky with what software. but if you want something that's relatively easy for spriting, i weirdly recommend manga studio. if you have a tablet of some sort, you can easily draw at a small scale. so i just assume it works pretty well for pixel art. lol

MS Paint XP can do everything you need.

I use MS Paint, and then I use GIMP to fix up and edit animations.

In my opinion, skill matters more than the tools used.

Just use MS Paint, been using it for years. Simple. Works Great.
As others said, skill matters more than the program used.

I'm using GraphicsGale for my spriting stuff . It's a really neat free substitute for Paint, if you aren't a fan of the latter like me. You can even buy a advanced version, which allows you to create animated .gif files with it but I guess it's not really that much needed (but nice to have).

For bigger art and non-pixelart pictures, I use GIMP, as it can be seen as a smaller and free version of photoshop .


This is how GraphicsGale looks like:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

it's common around here to rely a lot on MS Paint XP because all the great artists that passed here (myself included) used it extensively, but use graphics gale. It's very useful, customizable keyboard shortcuts, faster work method. It's much better than vanilla XP Paint.

MS Paint or Graphics Gale for PC.
Pixen for Mac.

Personally when I had windows, I've long abandoned MS paint when I realized that Graphics Gale proved to be a better program to make pixel art for the reasons Gors and Hirosoft stated. It's a powerful program that can do as much as you need. Pixen is a good alternative if you have a mac because it has as much as graphics gale in regard to functionality, which I played around with for the last few pieces I have made in the medium.

One thing I will say just as others have outright said is that skill matters more than the program. In other words no matter what program you use, much in the same vein as a painter using different sized brushes, it comes down to the artist and not the tools to make a great piece. So whatever you use just remember that don't get the best program you can afford and expect to become a great artist just because of one program.

(03-14-2017, 08:27 AM)DioShiba Wrote: Pixen for Mac.

The free version of Pixen is super unstable and can actually degrade your PNGs.

(03-14-2017, 11:14 AM)Raccoon Sam Wrote:

(03-14-2017, 08:27 AM)DioShiba Wrote: Pixen for Mac.

The free version of Pixen is super unstable and can actually degrade your PNGs.

This is the reason why I chose to get the full version, which is a bout $10 give or take. That's hardly a lot considering there are other programs out there that are on the pricey side of things.

well then again you could just use MS Paint through WINE

if you like seeing your art animate AND use for games clickteam fusion has a simple method of creating pixel art animations

I'll look into Graphics Gale and .. sorry clickteam fusion was it Jazz?

Thanks for the suggestions all.