If you are starting out with pixel art and/or spriting, this guide should help you. However, you will need to know the basics of pixel art. Wikipedia defines pixel art as: "Pixel art is a form of digital art, created on the computer through the use of raster graphics software where images are edited on the pixel level. Graphics in most old (or relatively limited) computer and video games, Game Boy games, graphing calculator games, and many mobile phone games are mostly pixel art."

In order to make pixel art, you will need a pixel level editor, the following is a list of several recommended applications that can support this feature.

MS Paint  - Pre-loaded on most Windows Systems, creates effective pixel art if time is dedicated. Recommended for use if you regularly use oekaki systems. MS Paint is simple, and harder to use, it has lower zoom levels that other applications. Use this if you have space limitations.

GraphicsGale - I highly recommend this app. This is an application created by HUMANBALANCE, and is design specifically for pixel art. There are two versions, freeware and shareware. The shareware version supports GIF, animated cursors and AVI. Both versions have dithering (for use with the flood fill tool) and have onion skinning, which allows you to display multiple frames at once (semi-transparent).

ProMotion - If you can afford it, this is an application used by many professional pixel artists. This has animation capabilities. I haven't used this, so I don't know what other features this has.

The following are programs that I would not recommend for usage.

Adobe Photoshop - Very complex for the average pixel artist. Tried it out, and found it very unwieldy for pixel art. I find that many novices use this application, although the stuff they make really couldn't be called pixel art. I have found that many beginners that use Photoshop tend to use the burn and dodge tools excessively, and the anti-aliased tools don't help with the sub-par psuedo-sprites.

The GIMP - Free, yes. Otherwise, this has the same issues as Photoshop.

For the following I will be using GraphicsGale, although you can use any program you feel comfortable with (yes, that means Photoshop and GIMP, but stay away from the Paintbrush tools, and the burn/dodge tools) as long as it can save to .png. PNGs are like bitmaps, although compressed and can support a fair amount of colors. Over the following we will work on a simple icon.

- Zoom down to a comfortable level (I chose 1500%) and begin line art. Your lines should be 1 pixel thick and should connect. Choose a color (preferable one that will not be used the final product.) and create the major outline of the item. For this, I used black although I have often found it easier in larger sprites to use green, red, and blue for differentiation.

- Create a palette of colors that you will be using on the side of the image. Arrange it in a gradient. This allows for an easier selection of colors.

- Fill in color from your palette to your outline (use the darkest shade), and then fill in the interior sections with the next darkest shade.

- From there, define a light source (I drew a shoddy yellow sun) and shade your item accordingly with colors from the palette. Shading regions further from the light source should be darker, and lighten as they move towards the light source.

- remove the light source, and the palette, and fill the background with a dark color. That's done. It should be saved as a png, simply for compression and quality. Below is a blown up image, compressed as a GIF to save space. However, in reality, the blown up image isn't as horrible and dithered as seen below, it's just the GIF format compression.

    There are many methods to make pixel art, however, what works for one person may not work for another. I know people who can create superb pixel art in GIMP and Photoshop, yet they shatter when they touch MS Paint and GraphicsGale. The method I have show here is the method that I prefer the most, and it is the one that gives me the best results. Although I use different techniques for different types of sprites, this is the most basic and the starting area for me: Line art, palette, light, shade. Out of all of these, the most important item (In my opinion) is line art. Without functional line art, everything else ceases to be, as the line art is the basis for all aspects of pixel art.