As simple as it sounds, I use Paintbrush, pretty much MSPaint for Mac. And I get some pretty stunning results. And no, I'm not lying.
So if you were to animate that, how would that work out, seeing as how you have no layers? And you definitely copied and pasted that sprite
It's a menu, so I don't know why you'd want to animate that, and no, I did not. I worked my soul out on that sprite.
Give it life. Usually, whenever you enter an RPG's show, the vendor does a little talk animation with a bubble. Plus, you gotta highlight what option to select as visual confirmation. And even if you did (just messing with you) make that sprite yourself, it's too good to go with the rest of the menu. Gots ta be consistent.
I've started using Gimp on a regular basis, but I won't pretend that it is a perfect solution. The developers of Gimp have screwed around for years WITHOUT solving viable UI problems, and don't even have a proper Mac port (who the hell uses CONTROL+C to copy, besides WINDOWS?). To further the problems with Mac, it doesn't even use the proper menu, and each friggin component gets its own window (you can't minimize the whole program, you have to minimize each part). Get rid of Python, Gimp, it is completely worthless. Besides my minor gripes, Gimp works and gets the job done. It doesn't have stupid issues and constant updates like PhotoShop (another worthless app). But at least I didn't have to pay for Gimp.
Mac only app that only costs $59 (less if you find the coupon code, I spent about $45, I think), uses the Mac's video card for processing, so it's really fast without taking up the rest of the computer's resources.
What I use: Photoshop Art Rage Studio (for "natural" media stuff). Pixen (pixel-art) Anime Studio Pro (for animations). Final Cut Pro + Motion (occasionally, mostly used for video-stuff).
Inkscape & Pixelmator When I'm doing the graphic work for something (be it a game or whatever) I tend to use either Inkscape, which has a somewhat decent Mac port, or Pixelmator. Inkscape is a vector editor whereas Pixelmator is more for raster imaging.
