Hey. I was wondering what is the program you use to create portraits with? Whether it be MS Paint, Asprite, Paint,net, whatever it may be. I’d like to gain some experience in case I want to move to another program.
Thanks for reading.
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Usenti is best as it retains palettes. It also has a useful grid feature that allows you to easily get the correct eye and mouth frames. The image resize feature is also handy as a starting place for minimugs.
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Personally I use usenti I find it the easiest and most intuitive, however you will need pngs and certain pixel formats will not work.
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A mixture of Usenti and MS paint for the minimug for me
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I started with MS paint and moved to Paint,NET just because there were more tools with layering available. MS Paint now does layering and transparency but I find it unwieldy, so sticking with Paint,NET
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Adobe Photoshop, but i guess i’m one of the few exceptions around here.
it allows me to work not only on single .png files, but also on different .gif levels/layers when i’m editing stuff like battle animations.
it is quite complex to learn though and it does not come for free, so unless you really want to put your time and money into it, not only for spriting but for all sorts of graphic works in general, i suggest to search for other free softwares with eventually easier learning curves, even though they might offer less options available compared to other known graphic softwares that need, however, to be purchased.
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I splice/draw and do the frames in aseprite, palette stuff in Usenti, and do the mini in paint.
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I do it all in pixlr lol (I want to die)
Like about half the people here, I started out using Usenti. It’s a great program, and I still use it sometimes, but the problem with it is that it doesn’t get the background green exactly right, and so some programs (like LT) won’t remove the background. It’s not too much of a problem to fix somewhere else, though, so what I usually end up doing is making the base sprite in Usenti, then going somewhere else to change the background color.
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Usenti for ease of use. The Grid and Tile Grid make it easy to line up sections for blink frames and whatnot. Don’t need much more for portraits in my opinion.
For more powerful free image editors I like GIMP over Paint(dot)NET. Though I only really use it for some larger format stuff like maps. Both have layers which can be super useful to work with.
For maps, backgrounds, CGs, etc. FEBuilderGBA has a color reduction tool which is very useful for reducing images down to GBA resolution and pallet limitations.
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I started with MS Paint, then I used GraphicsGale for a while, before I went back to MS Paint. I use Windows 11 and MS Paint isn’t very good anymore. I saw an ad for Aseprite, bought it for $20 and have been happy ever since.
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I started out with MS paint and I’m still using it to this day. But recently I’ve been trying to move to Aseprite but I’m just too comfortable with MS Paint.
I use usenti because it’s honestly kind of suffering to actually do pixel art in Aseprite LMAO… it feels like Aseprite was programmed so that using a tablet with it feels nice, but like, I use a mouse for most of my pixel art. Tablet is good for laying down blocking/rough real fast, but it’s just way easier to do the rest with a mouse.
I also find it’s easier to do GBA-safe palettes in Usenti; limiting bit depth in Aseprite is kind of an annoying process whereas Usenti is 5bpp by default.
It’s also just easier for me to do color selection in Usenti. I hate Aseprite’s UI with every fiber of my being, but the fact that it has so many tools makes it indispensable for animations.
Also, I barely use layers in my regular digital painting, why in the Sam Hill would I use layers in a pixel portrait.
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MSPaint for portraits with Usenti for color check and getting the perfect frame cuts, Aseprite for animations.
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I use GraphicsGale for actually making the portraits, and Usenti for palettes and colour limitations.
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Good ol’ MS Paint, baby! For all my spriting needs!
It’s probably not, like, “best practices”, but it’s what I’m used to and this is just a hobby for me, so eh
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I use MS Paint and rarely Paint{dot}NET
And I just want to let all those folk on Windows 11 who use Paint know…
The old paint is still there, you just have to find the way to access it.
It was just a quick google search for me and I managed to get back to the good MS Paint.
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