In this post I will try to provide resources that will help anyone interested in creating Pixel art/animations either for videogames or for fun.
First off you are going to need some type of program that will allow you to edit pictures. There are plenty of programs out there that you can use. The most popular one's being:
There are plenty more options out there you can fine, these three are just the one's I can think of at the top of my head all you have to do is go out and look for them.
Each of the 3 I listed each have there advantages and disadvantages. Photoshop for instance, is proprietary, which means you have to pay for a license in order to use the product. The license is usually pretty expensive and is also payed on a subscription basis. Despite this it is still one of the most used programs out there and will have the most support and resources to help you learn about the tool.
Aseprite is probably one of the most popular tools to use in terms of pixel art but one of its caveats is that you have to pay for the tool. Unlike with photoshop though it is only a one time purchase and is relatively cheap. However there is also a free version of the program called LibreSprite which has most of the features offered in Aseprite.
Lastly there is Gimp which is essentially a free and open source alternative to Photoshop. Although being similar to Photoshop there are a lot of differences that may take a little bit of time to get used to if you are already used to Photoshop. Also its name is a little problematic.
I Personally recommend going with Aseprite/LibreSprite. Its used by a lot of game developers and artists and there are plenty of tutorials out there that you can watch to familiarize yourself with it.
In this section I will provide some usefull resources and tutorials mostly for Aseprite since that is what I primarily use
This one is a little technical but the way he manages to use Look up tables for applying skins to a sprite is very interesting to me.