Animating with sprites is hard stuff. There's no good way to get an onion skin. I've animated in MS paint before. Like, purely in MS paint.

One thing I'd recommend is experience in something like flash too, so that you can work out how something moves before doing it in paint. Like a pencil test for traditional animators.


As for making the unreal real, hang around conceptart or cghub a bit. You're bound to see something.

Oh, thanks for the sites, i saw some good work there.

And flash, well, one time I got a magazine teaching "how to do a flash game", but all it explained nothing, it just gave the code for us, and even without knowing flash I knew that the code that much I noticed the code was wrong. I just learned to use Corel becase it came with my computer, and when I sold it, my bro gave me his CD, so I could install the program in my new one.

Well, animate the sprites don't seem to be that hard, but it depends on what you're going to use that (in case of a flash game, how you'll align that, how the camera works in the game, how the engine works, etc.), because you need to figure out how to sprite, and how to animate correctly. If I'm spriting for a game, I ask to its coder before.

And animate with MS paint... is it possible? I sprite there and animate with an external program (I have Windows XP, if that matters).
And Onion skin... as in, the full thing, the full posibility, capability? Because onions have layers, there are some to break through until you get in its heart, in its inner.

I wrote a big tutorial on actionscript. I know how to make games in flash. It's floating around somewhere in the tutorial section.

I do the actual animation in MS paint, I need another program to give it life. I used to use imageready until that disappeared. Photoshop still has the same capabilities, but it doesn't work with gifs quite as smoothly.

Onion skins are an animation term for an overlay of the previous frame on top of the frame you're currently drawing. It enables you to see what you're doing relative to what you've done. It's crucial to have onion skins or you could never tell where on earth the spacing was supposed to be.

Beneton have a bug similar to it.
For spacing, I usually draw boxes around the sprite, it is easier to see how it is moving.

I typically color in the previous frame in some bright color, then draw the next one on top of it. Someday I'll eventually get a pixel program that I like more than Kolour paint (it's like MS paint, but better.) that also supports animation.

I'm sure you've heard this before, but I'll say it anyway.

paint.net

It's a little wierd to get used to, if you've only used MS paint, but it's awesome.

I can't use .net based programs (and it is really sad because I was developing a game, and there was an awesome tool that would help me a lot, but it was entirely programmed in .net, ok, the game was more of a test, but it is still sad).
But I've heard it is awesome, and it seems to be.
At least the new Paint in Windows 7000 looks awesome too, I wish I could get it soon, if I had a better computer...

It comes out in October, anyway.

No. Out. OUT. OUT!

Paint.net is a BAD program. You'd be better off with a browser based program for goodness sakes.

http://www.photoshop.com/

I have Photoshop, an older version, but yeah, it is enough.
Anyway, I prefer Corel Draw, but they complete eachoter...

Well at least Paint.NET is better than MS Paint and (IMO) Fireworks

I got a way to install .NET in my computer, but I decided to not install Paint.NET, as I don't have a tablet and I'm too impatient with mouses, I'll stick to Pixel Art (it may be a paradox, but I'm patient with PAs), though, I'll still drawing with a pencil/pen.

I have two projects that will need some drawings after I go to spriting, one is about making concept art for a game I'm making (MMORPG, though, it won't be soon 'cuz I'm working alone and I need to get some money to host the game, I also need to learn the game's code language again, and I'm starting almost from scratch, so I'll take my time and develop the concept, when I think it is OK and I got most stuff done, I'll work on the game itself, I also need to contact some friends that helped me last time, they're noobs but w/e >.>), and the other one is a secret.
I also wanna make some drawings of my characters and sprite them after.

I'm still practicing though, thank you Evilagram you gave me some good tips, I'll practice until I can draw some good bodies

Sorry for my english, I don't feel like rewriting this right now