For me, Pro Mmotion is THE pixel and animation solution. So simple yet loaded with stuff.

You can use it's simple pixel and animation features to get something done fast, yet expand with the features it offers.

(And, of course, hotkeys that feels like Deluxe Paint on the Commodore Amiga)

It's as simple as this, u wanna be pro then you must act pro for u will become pro. How do you think the pros know all the best tools? Pick one learn it to mastery. Repeat. Pick your favorite, etc.

A friend of mine working for HeartBit Interactive (the ones from Doon&Destiny) said he's using Aseprite for animations and photoshop for the rest.
I'm not a pixel artist though so I don't know more S:

Someone posted these in the forum some time ago, it's a nice read:
- http://www.dinofarmgames.com/the-art-barn-the-cool-rules-of-spriting/
- http://www.dinofarmgames.com/the-art-barn-what-im-currently-animating/
- http://www.dinofarmgames.com/the-art-barn-designing-and-redesigning-auro/

I hope by you saying pixel art is the only way for you to create reasonable art is because you have experience with pixel art. Not because you think its easy or easier then any other type of art. Pixel art is very difficult to get right and every pixel matters. Moving a single pixel can change the entire image. Its very difficult really.

I use always pyxel edit.

I like ProMotion, personally. Its probably the most expensive pixel art program, but its worth it for serious work. It used to be $80 in the pre-NG days of v6 which I thought was a touch high, but at $60 now its a great price.

GraphicsGale is nice, and is only ~$20.

AESprite is free and quite good, but not as feature-rich as some of the paid options.

I wish I could remember the name of it, but there's another program that's interesting because it runs on something like 20 platforms, with a custom UI layer so it works the same everywhere. It ran on Windows, Linux, and Mac, of course, but it also ran on things like DOS, Amiga, and the Atari XT.

Thanks for the replies guys, I ended up with Pro Motion in the end, but mainly because of the tileset capabilities which Aseprite lacks at the moment. I wish I could use Aseprite, but as of now there's no tilemap support :(

As for Pyxel Edit, I've only played with it a little bit, but it seems nice. At first I was kind of put off by the free version, but the paid newer one feels like a completely different program.

I hope by you saying pixel art is the only way for you to create reasonable art is because you have experience with pixel art. Not because you think its easy or easier then any other type of art. Pixel art is very difficult to get right and every pixel matters. Moving a single pixel can change the entire image. Its very difficult really.

I don't really have any experience with art of any form, except for the past few weeks/months I've been trying to learn. I can't really do digital painting, but with pixel art, it feels that I can iterate much more easily. Manipulating individual pixels is something I can do even if I can't draw a nice line. It might be that I've just spent a lot more time learning pixel art than learning drawing, but if I'm making a rock in 10x10 pixels with 4 colors, there's only so many ways I can shade the rock if I have the shape.

I use always pyxel edit.

My preference for Pyxel Edit is not only for its simplicity, but also for the possibility to create "logic graphics", that is, the numerical information of the graphics as you would integrate them into the code. As in the old days

Totaly hard to say- since....

For editing rasters, best I would say is Adobe Photo Shop project family. Yet, The Jasc , later Corel Pro, is good for rasters too, "but long time no see".

Adobe PS is an unfriendly soft that you will be speculating against, much, yet, it offers realy thrilling options for raster work, you just have to bite yourself a little bit (maybe?).

For vectors, SVG, or other formats, PS etc., and arbitrary deifnitions out of raster space, there are many vector editiors already, on many platfroms, but established editing program for vector 2d graphics would mayb be....? Long time no see. (ask graphician guys, I dunno)