-Programs-

• Aseprite

Aseprite is such a lifesaver for me. Easy to use, easy to learn. Simple yet useful. It does cost some cash but I got mine at a Steam sale. You can add scripts that you can find online or make yourself. While it's not as beefy as something like Photoshop, I can 100% say this is hands down the best pixel art software I've used.

• Krita

Krita. Who hasn't heard of Krita at this point? Krita isn't exactly pixel art, but any drawing software is pixel art if you draw small enough. just use a one-pixel-sized pen brush and lower that canvas size. Best of all, Krita is free! I've used this to get into art from when, and I can 100% say I still haven't slept since.

-Pixel Art Recommendations-

• Canvas size

You can personally use any size you would like so long as it's small enough to make pixels look ok. I like to use the screen size of the SNES at 256x224 pixels. I usually draw on this size and export at around 700% scale-up in Aseprite but feel free to find out what works for you

• How do I make this real thing look good?

Pixel art has less space to work with, so naturally you just have fewer details. Bigger sprite, more detail. This is a double-edged sword. Get too big and it's just drawing, get too small and you have 4 pixels and a dream. The right size will vary depending on what you're making pixel art for, but you should prioritize important details in the art more than all the details. Less is more here.

• How should I start practicing?

Now the way I started isn't exactly art school level learning but if you wanna find a fun way to learn pixel art, what I did was mess with Minecraft's textures. they're easy to pull out of the game and draw on. it's a bit disorganized in the texture files but if you keep it all where it is and turn it into a resource pack then you'll be able to see your work in-game

If you don't wanna dig through 10 years of textures another way is to limit your canvas size for a character or object. start drawing stuff on an 8x8 canvas, then when you feel ready or bored move up to 16x16. this is a great way to learn pixel art and its limits while also getting in some practice. don't worry if your first drawing looks bad to you, it's progress. progress is not pretty. Learn your tools, learn your limits, and you'll be ok

• Any external resources I should know?

-Losepc

Great resource. They have a ton of color palettes to choose from if you wanna try something unique or wanna limit your color usage a bit.

-Anything retro

I mean, where else were you gonna find pixel art with these hard limits? Look at what details they chose to keep and what detail choices they made to make their image come to life

-Animation

If you plan to animate, you first gotta know how things move. this cannot be done on one single post, but if you have the resources, watch some animated content. you're on new ground. It's like, 95% of this place. My advice would be to understand anatomy, smear frames, and squash and stretch.

---Anatomy

How someone or something should look. how long is your head, how your arm bends, and stuff like that.

---Smear frames

You don't need to animate EVERY frame. Your brain doesn't get every detail. The brain compensates for that naturally. Your brain will fill in any missing information as needed. Smears trick you into seeing movement. if you can trick people into thinking something is moving then it's moving. Animation is an illusion. Keep the man behind the curtain.

---Squash and stretch

This here is probably a difficult topic to separate from smears. To show how fast something is moving it's common to stretch out their proportions. this is kinda like a less intense smear. Unfortunately, this is something you would either know how or don't. there's no perfect ratio. all I can say is practice with smears and you'll know where to do more or less.

-Good luck drawing small drawings!-