I'm privileged enough to have a graphics tablet to use as far as equipment goes but if you're looking for software to use.
Actually Free:
- Medibang Paint Pro
- Krita
- Paint.NET
- SUMOpaint
Not actually free but easy to get a hold on
- Paint Tool SAI
Paid
-Clip Studio Paint
If you want a comparison of program:
Medibang Paint Pro is my top recommended legitimately free program. It's got tons of features that paid programs have as standard(and even some handy ones that paid ones don't!) Layout is easy to navigate and it autosaves your drawings so no accidental losses! Downsides are that the brush customization is a little lacking/not as fine tuned as a paid program and it doesn't perform well on large canvas sizes with large brushes.
Krita is much the same as Medibang with better brush customization but I personally find it difficult to navigate and it has a very heavy photoshop feel. It also really does not like my tablet for some reason.
Paint.NET: Only a few steps above Microsoft Paint/Paint 3D to be honest. It's incredibly light weight but sometimes you don't need much- there's a reason it's often recommended for making Minecraft Skins.
SUMOpaint: TBH I don't really hold this program in much high regard, I'd put it a step above Paint.NET. I only remember it because you can use it on a browser though they do have downloadable software.
Paint Tool SAI is, as I said, technically a paid program but it's incredibly easy to get for free (not that I'd help you find it). It's a standard art program for the most part but it has one very important function-
layers and tools specifically for doing Line Art. It's so comprehensive and versatile that you could easily make line work that looks like it's done with a tablet using only a mouse.
Clip Studio Paint is not free and very hard to pirate, more trouble than waiting for it to go on sale (on sale it runs about $25 USD) but you honestly wouldn't want to. CSP is regularly updated, has fantastic customer support, and comes the most useful features of any program I've tried. I use it for almost everything now. It's photoshop but more geared towards illustrations as opposed to manipulating photos.
Every one of these programs is able to do pixel art, the important functions to remember is that it needs to have anti-aliasing turned
off and to make things called
Binary Pens. There are programs out there made for pixel art specifically but unless you're doing animations (which would be an odd idea if you're not familiar with non-moving pixels yet) it's not really worth mentioning at the moment. A lot of the things necessary for nice pixel art also applies to traditional illustrations and vice-versa. Working with both is beneficial.
Lospec is a truly fantastic website for tutorials on most things pixel. Be warned though, not everything they have is free. Has it's own bare bones browser-based pixel art program.
Pixilart is a more budgeted version of Lospec, you'll often find the same free tutorials on here that you'd find on the other site. A slightly more full browser-based pixel art program.
My last bit of long post advice is this (and bare in mind that this is some face value advice- more of an explanation of my quirks than anything) If you know how to colour, you don't need to know how to draw. Put a lot of emphasis on teaching yourself where colours should go and it makes learning things like AnAtOmY feel a lot less tedious. Also
study anatomy.
