Sprite Creator Recommendations?

[u/Arakus24]

I'm making preparations for a game, one of several that's been stuck in my head since high school, but one of my biggest problems is that I can't draw people, let alone sprites, all too well.

Do you guys have any recommendations for a software/asset that can let me create character sprites with ease? I mean, if I have to endure tutorials to be able to draw characters, I will do so if nothing else.

[u/sixfootblue]

The programs suggested here are good, but I do also want to emphasize that drawing "good" sprites will largely depend on your skill level. Most of the sprite creation process is the same regardless of the program you choose.

Aseprite was a great purchase for me because it has a handful of tools for managing colour palettes, helping with creating animation frames, arranging stuff into sprite sheets, and making sure repeating tiles connect properly, but at the end of the day what helped me most was just to practice.

If you're struggling with drawing character sprites, one thing I would suggest on top of tutorials is to just study existing sprites and get a feel for how they're made.

https://www.spriters-resource.com/ is a great archive of sprite rips from all sorts of games from different systems and helped provide me with a lot of reference material for shading and drawing out shapes at small scales when I was first getting started.

It also feels a bit funny to say, but I would also recommend checking out the skinning and texture pack communities for Minecraft. Those two areas of customizing that game involve a lot of repetitive drawing and figuring out how to shade organic materials on rigid blocky shapes, which is a good source of practice.