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Looking for a (potentially multiplatform) app for pixel art
I wanted to practice my stagnant drawing skills and something I always liked is pixel art, but I don't know any program for that (beside Paint and Photoshop) so I would like for recommendations here, the only big feature I need is multi layers management and that preferably runs in multiple platforms (You know, like Gimp and Inkscape).
Anything that runs on Linux/Windows/Android is welcomed. I guess there should be open source apps for that, and since it's only for practice I would to waste money on paid apps.
Asesprite is a standard tool for pixel artists afaik -- it's certainly more commonly used for pixel art than anything like Photoshop or Gimp. It's open-source if you want to build it yourself but you can also pay $20 for an already-built version. It runs on Windows/Mac/Linux, but afaik not mobile platforms.
Asperite is not open source but rather source-available. It is subject to an EULA or that doesn't really allow public modification or redistribution of the code. This decision actually led to the creation of Libresprite, which forked the last GPLv2 commit of Asperite.
I don't really see this as splitting hairs if somebody were to feel I was. There's a fairly broad line between what one can do with source-available vs open source, especially if you read Asperite's EULA.
That said, Asperite is great software. I bought a license to support it even if I've used Libresprite more.
Seconding aseprite.
It does have a demo, but that doesn’t allow you to save files (but you could play around with it to see if you want it). It also goes on sale periodically (or at least the steam version does, and the steam version is still DRM free and can be launched without steam).
Aseprite is likely the program you want for pixel art on desktop. (Also note you get a Steam key if you buy it from aseprite.org)
Aseprite's source code is actually publicly viewable and if you have the know-how, the license allows you to compile it for yourself, for free. If you happen to use Arch Linux, the AUR has packages that build the program.
Pixelorama is a decent alternative if you'd rather not buy a program right now. It's free and open-source (made with Godot even). If you're literally just starting out with pixel art and you don't want to buy anything yet, this is what I would recommend. Otherwise, Aseprite.
I don't have an Android phone, but I've used Pixel Studio and Resprite before, and they both have Android versions I believe. They aren't as feature-rich as Aseprite, but both should be fine for just static pixel art images. If you want to do animations or tilemaps, I think both apps support those now, but I've never used them for that.
I installed Asesprite using the
build.shscript on my Fedora distro, I gave it a quick try and it has everything I need, I might also try Pixelorama later when I have the time.Since no one has mentioned it, I thought I'd bring up Piskel. It's no longer maintained but still works fine. Personally I'd say it's more beginner-friendly than Aseprite
I like pikopixel but it's Linux and MacOS only.
Curious if these recommended tools in this thread are also the best recommendations for "animating" pixel art? I've seen numerous cool pixel-art style animations lately (twitch emotes, stream cosmetics, all sorts of things) and I've been curious how people go about creating them and wanting to try my hand at it too. Curious which ones are best for speeding up the animation creating process, as I'm sure maybe there's some smarter ways to do it than drawing every frame individually. I've used Piskel but nothing else yet.
Going to give a bunch of these other tools a try and see what clicks for me