Art program to create custom sprites?

[Xirix]

I'm very new to spriting and haven't a clue where to start. Any tips and program suggestions on what to draw it in?

I'm not planning on doing anything super-complex, just want to make some custom sprites for a Mario romhack.

[Dear President Seinfeld]

ms paint is fine if you're old school, photoshop's great because of the extremely advance layer-based editing and transparency system, gimp is like baby's first photoshop and it's free, and if you're a loser you can use paint.net.

[puggsoy]

For the most part MS Paint is sufficient, since it lets you edit pixels. I heard people talking about how XP's version is the best one, if you have another version of Windows you can probably download it somewhere.

Some people also use GraphicsGale, never used it myself but apparently it's great for spriting.

GIMP and Photoshop are pretty much the same, to be honest I would only buy Photoshop if there were some specific features that I wanted to use. But most of the time, in terms of layers and all that GIMP should be sufficient. So yeah, if you want to work in layers or be able to move stuff around easily GIMP is good (it's particularly handy when making sprite sheets).

And then there's also Paint.NET, as mentioned above. Contrary to unpopular belief, it's just as fitting for non-losers as it is for losers. Seriously though, lots of people here use it too. Not sure how it is for spriting specifically, but I think for the most part it comes into the same category as GIMP and PS (although I think it's more directed at image creation, whereas the others are focused more on image manipulation).

All that said, I use GIMP for all my image work, but I'm not a spriter. If you're not looking to make anything too complex, as you said, you can probably work well enough with any of these.

As for tips, I'll leave that to the experts

[Garamonde]

Basically, MS Paint for your average spriting (unless it requires transparency), GraphicsGale for animating.

[Mag]

Game Maker Studio's currently my favorite pixel art program, try that. ;D

[Dear President Seinfeld]

For the most part MS Paint is sufficient, since it lets you edit pixels. I heard people talking about how XP's version is the best one, if you have another version of Windows you can probably download it somewhere.

Some people also use GraphicsGale, never used it myself but apparently it's great for spriting.

GIMP and Photoshop are pretty much the same, to be honest I would only buy Photoshop if there were some specific features that I wanted to use. But most of the time, in terms of layers and all that GIMP should be sufficient. So yeah, if you want to work in layers or be able to move stuff around easily GIMP is good (it's particularly handy when making sprite sheets).

And then there's also Paint.NET, as mentioned above. Contrary to unpopular belief, it's just as fitting for non-losers as it is for losers. Seriously though, lots of people here use it too. Not sure how it is for spriting specifically, but I think for the most part it comes into the same category as GIMP and PS (although I think it's more directed at image creation, whereas the others are focused more on image manipulation).

All that said, I use GIMP for all my image work, but I'm not a spriter. If you're not looking to make anything too complex, as you said, you can probably work well enough with any of these.

As for tips, I'll leave that to the experts

Photoshop has actually moved a lot closer to supporting original art in recent years, and it pretty much the only application you can use to create really, really good original art without using physical mediums.

Regular art made in Photoshop:


But, in the interest of fairness, this pixel art was made in MS Paint:

[puggsoy]

Oh well, my mistake then. Guess that only counts for GIMP then (although you can make art, it's just it's designed towards editing).

[TheMario360]

I need to know how one posts something from MS Paint onto here. can you please tell me how?

[Previous]

I could've told you on the chat but apparently it's impossible to wait for a (literal) minute and everyone has to reply instantly because we have nothing better to do than to watch the chat window every second of our life so we can reply instantly and of course we also do not need time to type.


You should save your picture from MSPaint as a PNG and then use an image hosting service such as imgur or minus to make it accessible on the internet. These services will provide you a "direct link" which you can use to embed your image in forum posts by using image tags:

Code:

[img](paste direct link here)[/img]

[Lilly]

Photobucket is still a good image host too. (Not a fan of their new look though, but the old UI is still an option.) They have a file size limit now, but most of my uploads are in JPG, optimized PNG, or GIF format, so yeah, not that much of an issue. Just make sure your size limit is capped by file size and not resolution, so large images like my sprite sheets are just fine.

Also, I would sooner recommend Paint.NET for Pixel art than newer versions of MSPaint. The behavior of my most favorite tools are utterly crippled in Win7, and saving in GIF format still doesn't optimize its own palette for the image, breaking every color you used. Besides, Paint.NET has layers and a more flexible layout, so I'm much more comfortable with that.

Oh well, my mistake then. Guess that only counts for GIMP then (although you can make art, it's just it's designed towards editing).

My latest deviation would like to have a word with you. =P

This other piece on dA is also a good example of what GIMP can do.



GIMP still has a long way to go in comparison to Photoshop, (Which makes GIMP's namesake even funnier : "Walk impeded by some physical limitation or injury") but yeah, you can create art with it. But if you need something more, grab an Adobe product and go nuts with it, or PaintTool SAI.

[TheMario360]

Thanks for the tip, I've been using photobucket for my sprite sheets and it's doing great. If you want to you can check out my work. (I have to say though, I started using photobucket before you made this reply)

[Novally]

I use MS Paint and sometimes GIMP. I use MS Paint for sprites, GIMP for other forms of art. I used to use Graphics Gale (which I am going to go back to because I am going to try to do Capcom style sprites).

[puggsoy]

Oh well, my mistake then. Guess that only counts for GIMP then (although you can make art, it's just it's designed towards editing).

My latest deviation would like to have a word with you. =P

Heh, yeah I know you can make great art with it. To be honest I'm mainly saying this due to GIMP standing for GNU Image Manipulation Program, rather than GNU Image Creation Program (GICP). From that I'm assuming that, at least from the developers' point of view, it was initially intended for image editing.
Also because I personally use it primarily for editing, since I rarely create stuff from scratch

[~Axis~]

Diffrent programs work better for some more than others. You should try out some of the above mentioned programs and see which you prefer. I would recommend the good 'ol MS Paint, as it is rather simple to use and easy to modify and create sprites with its grid feature. I would also recommend GraphicsGale for animation as you can compare frames, so it makes the task a whole lot easier.

[Phaze]

Photobucket is still a good image host too. (Not a fan of their new look though, but the old UI is still an option.)

Really? Photobucket's new UI is one of the few website UI overhauls that I didn't have a problem with