About Spriting

[Virtuaboy123]

Hello all
I just need some inspiration and/or advice for this winter break, I'm going to try improving my pixel art. I might even try taking a class next semester.

I just have a list of questions, I'd like to here from you guys.
-Why do you do pixel art?
-Does anyone on here make a living by simply doing pixelart alone or at least have had a job or been hired to make some?
-Did you ever take classes? did they help?
-How much time a day do you think you spend making pixel art?
-Whats your recommended program for doing pixel art?
You don't have to answer them all, but I'd like some input.

I only do this as a hobby but I feel like I rush through my work sometimes or I come back and think it's not as good looking as when I finished it.

Thanks

[Rakia]

I haven't done pixel art in a while, but I used to do it often, still do it occasionally (working on something small right now). A lot of people on this site (don't know if they frequent it anymore however) actually have made livings or gotten payed off of doing pixel art, so if there's anyone still here that has I'll leave that to them.

As for classes, I've never heard of a pixel art course directly, but anatomy classes and colour/composition classes are extremely helpful when it comes to sprite work, helps you learn the basics of drawing, which is not needed for pixel art, but like I said, extremely helpful. Finally, MS Paint is pretty much the most basic thing you'll need that most people use. Some people use Graphics Gale. I use Photoshop, simply because I'm on a mac and don't have MS Paint.

[Garamonde]

I use Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7 because I've been using it for years upon years and it's the most comfortable thing I've ever used, but MS Paint is honestly all you need. You don't need all the fancy features that other programs have (unless it's GraphicsGale for animating), just your own artist's ability.

[puggsoy]

Just so you know, if you want something with more complex than MS Paint but can't afford Photoshop, I'm pretty sire GIMP would do the trick.

I'm not a spriter myself though so I can't help with any of the other points.

[Gors]

I just have a list of questions, I'd like to here from you guys.
1-Why do you do pixel art?
2-Does anyone on here make a living by simply doing pixelart alone or at least have had a job or been hired to make some?
3-Did you ever take classes? did they help?
4-How much time a day do you think you spend making pixel art?
5-Whats your recommended program for doing pixel art?
You don't have to answer them all, but I'd like some input.

1-I do pixelart mainly for fun. It's an art medium I'm familiar with, and I've been doing them for a long time. For me, it's relaxing to place the dots and see them form complex shapes. It's really fun.
2-I have never been hired for money, but I was involved in some projects before, not necessarily games. It's nothing major though; most of my sprite work goes to my own personal projects.
3-I never took classes for pixelart, and sincerely I have never seen or heard of one before. My techniques and knowledge came from analyzing official sprites, editing them, studying traditional media techniques (anatomy, color theory, shading) and of course, tSR. The fact that I always enjoyed drawing since the kid days must have helped me too.
4-Since I work and do other stuff, I don't spend a lot of time spriting. I stream my spriting to help me keep motivated and focused though, and they can get over 3 hours long (showing your progress really helps, for some reason). In the end, it really depends on my motivation and free time.
5-I use MS Paint and Graphics Gale combo, and personally, that's all what you need. Gale does everything Photoshop does, without dumbing down your computer performance and simplifying the animation process. It's a really handy tool and I reccomend it.

[Virtuaboy123]

Thanks for the advice/responses everyone.
I'll take a look at some of the programs you guys use. From the looks of it there doesn't seem like there are many classes. I think this site is good at giving feedback and helping people, so maybe a class isn't even needed.

[Gors]

Like I said, I've never seen anything like a "pixelart class". But if it can teach you stuff, then why not? Learning things is important, no matter what method you use.

Also I forgot to say, Graphics Gale is a paid program; I cracked it to be able to use all its resources. You may (not) want to go through that stuff, so I felt I should point this out.

[Previous]

As far as I know, the only features of GG that are shareware-version specific are the support for GIF, ICO, CUR and ANI files.
There's alternatives for all of these (I use the RealWorld cursor editor for CUR and ANI, @icon sushi for ICO (it has nice multi-image icon support)) if you should need to use them (chances are you won't, I do because I make windows cursors and programs sometimes).

[Phaze]

As far as I know, the only features of GG that are shareware-version specific are the support for GIF, ICO, CUR and ANI files.
There's alternatives for all of these (I use the RealWorld cursor editor for CUR and ANI, @icon sushi for ICO (it has nice multi-image icon support)) if you should need to use them (chances are you won't, I do because I make windows cursors and programs sometimes).

GIMP also has support for ICO and of course, GIF
I doubt it supports ANI/CUR but it might. I haven't checked
I just wish they'd add APNG support natively, even if there is a plugin for it.

[Previous]

I could never figure out how to make multi-icon .ico files in GIMP conveniently. With @icon, I can just drag&drop my PNGs, select them and save them as one .ico.

Why APNG? Why not MPNG? Or even better, WebP? ;-)
The issue here is that people couldn't decide which one should be the new standard. The PNG people are against MPNG, Google says everyone who doesn't WebP is dumb, et cetera paule paule. :I

[Phaze]

The issue here is that people couldn't decide which one should be the new standard. The PNG people are against MPNG, Google says everyone who doesn't WebP is dumb, et cetera paule paule. :I

At this point I'm inclined to say screw Google >:I

[Sevenstitch]

Paint.net can make and package various resolution icons or cursors together, using a plugin from the Paint.net forums.

I've used it several times, and haven't had a problem.

[puggsoy]

I could never figure out how to make multi-icon .ico files in GIMP conveniently.

Pretty sure you just need to make different sized layers. That is, each layer is a resolution (64x64, 32x32, etc). In terms of "conveniently", you can just drag images into the window to add it as a layer.

[Previous]

GIMP needs ages to start (no I don't have it running all the time). That's the biggest part of "conveniently" :-)

[Garamonde]

At this point I'm inclined to say screw Google >:I

Scroogle