I'm not quite there yet, so take this with a heaping spoonful of salt, but as another programmer who wanted to do pixel art for their games: Forget about pixel

I'm not quite there yet, so take this with a heaping spoonful of salt, but as another programmer who wanted to do pixel art for their games: Forget about pixel art for now and learn how to draw first. Pixel art is not an easy shortcut. It's just another form of art, and a surprisingly difficult one to do well. Trying to do pixel art without knowing how to draw sounds kinda like the people asking "how I make game without programming?" Answer: By stumbling around in the dark a lot and wasting your time. I recommend the Ctrl+Paint video series, if you're interested, which starts off with simple exercises done with pencil and paper, and builds up from there: http://ctrlpaint.com/library/ http://ctrlpaint.com/library/ Going from knowing your way around one field to being at the level of a small child in another is a frustrating but profoundly humbling experience that I sincerely recommend to anyone that's built up a bit of arrogance from being "good at computers" for as long as they can remember. I can honestly say it was a turning point in my life. It's also a very time consuming process, however, that often leaves me thinking that I'm wasting my time starting from scratch instead of focusing on my strengths. Alas, not everyone has connections or artistically talented friends, and most pixel artists I've talked to would rather work on their own games if you aren't paying them up front. Give it a shot anyways, there's a lot more logic to the drawing process than most people assume. If you find it's not for you, ASCII art or one of the various CC-licensed game art collections is probably a better use of your time: http://opengameart.org/ http://opengameart.org/