Aseprite

I can't recommend Aseprite enough! I've been using it for a few years now, and would never use anything else 😃 The way it handles palettes, animations, brushes and layers are on point. When you're done with your sprite/animation, it gives you a sprite sheet, which can be easily imported into external applications. My favourite feature is the automatic shading, where it uses the palette you've defined as a darkener/lightener. This alone has saved me tons of time when spriting!

Hey there! I very recently learned about Aseprite on Twitter (https://twitter.com/davidbyttow/...) I love pixel art but never had the patience to create something for myself (used to design sprites for work a long time ago.) I started yesterday using Aseprite, and it's perfect. 👌

I got this for creating some simple sprites for games, and it has totally delivered. It's very easy to immediately start creating and the color palettes that it comes with are great. They're almost all video game console specific which was a big plus for me. The animation tools took a little time to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, it's very useful. This is definitely geared more towards those looking to create sprites for games, but it's also a super easy way to create a quick pixel image for anything. I actually made my profile image with this!

Pros:

Easy to get started, great default color palettes, and very affordable

Cons:

Animation and some of the shading features can be a bit confusing at first