What would be an excellent 2d art design program for a low budget project. Game Design Area

Paint Shop Pro 7....

You can download it for $69 i believe, or you can buy it retail for $99! It is the only program that even comes close to Photoshop. I used PSP 7 until I had the money for Photoshop 7, which worked out great.

Also, PSP has just as many tutorials as Photoshop on the web...

MS Paint, x800 and go pixel by pixel.

http://www.zoggles.co.uk/pixelation/tutorials.asp

there are good tutorials for making 2d art using paint or psp or whatever you wanna use.