NOTE: this is a direct repost of a tutorial I've written for an "art school" thread on PFQ, a Pokémon clicker website. Hence its Pokémon theme and it coming with exercises. I left them on because they might be good for practice, but don't feel obliged to do them, obviously!
Most people are familiar with Paint, as it comes standard with every Windows computer. Many new artists even start out with it, particularly those in the dolling and spriting scenes. It's often regarded as a "bad art" program and downtalked by more experienced artists, but if you know what you're doing and know the tricks to use to get over Paint's limitations, it can be used to create perfectly awesome artwork.
For this guide, I ask that you use the old MS Paint, which can be downloaded from here if you don't have it. The old MS Paint is the pre-Vista version, I believe.
MS Paint only has a very limited selection of tools and options, so it's relatively easy to learn what all of them are for. As you can see, there's no option for layers or any non-binary brushes (binary is a solid pixel edge, nonbinary would be a brush with automatic anti-aliasing), making it somewhat limited, but if you don't mind working in binary, it's perfectly usable, and even well-suited for making pixel art. It definitely pays to know the short-keys for actions (like ctrl++, ctrl+-, ctrl+c, ctrl+v), since a lot of features can be resized without there being a clickable option for it somewhere.
Obviously, this is just an example of how to draw in MS Paint, and if you prefer to go straight into the lineart, or never use a lineart, or "paint" right over your sketch, that's all totally fine. There's no right way to do art, and definitely no right style to do art in, so don't blindly copy what I do and try out some stuff for yourself too.
On that note, while these drawings are binary, they're not pixel art because there's little focus on the individual pixels. For something to be pixel art, the placement of only one or a few pixels should make a huge difference for the overall picture, while these drawings were made without even really needing to zoom in, let alone focus on the pixels.
Above are just some quick notes on doing pixel art in MS Paint specifically; pixel art is a pretty complex art form and there's lots of things to keep in mind, so for further reading I would recommend this tutorial. Also remember that pixel art doesn't need to be that small, but if you want to pay attention to it on pixel level, the bigger the piece is, the more work it will be.
... And that about covers everything, or at least the most important things you should know about MS Paint! There's probably more tricks to it, although largely things you will never ever need in your life ever. The most important thing to keep in mind probably is using the eraser well, since it's your substitute for layers and locking a layer.
EXERCISES
1. Generate three random Pokémon with a generator, and make three sketches in MS Paint, one of each Pokémon. (If you only get really hard or complicated Pokémon, feel free to generate again). 2. Pick one of the sketches you just made, and finish it by linearting, colouring and shading it. 3. Try making a lineless picture of a Pokémon of your choice (I recommend making it a small picture if you aren't very confident with MS Paint yet, just make sure it's not so small it's basically a pixel art). 4. Do a recolour of your lineless picture. 5. Make a gradient, and do whatever you want with that gradient. Freedom! Tip: it's possible to use more than two colours in your gradient, as long as they overlap vertically.
EXTRA EXERCISES: 1. Make a pixel in MS Paint of a starter Pokémon, doing flat colours first, and then shading. 2. Make a pixel of another starter Pokémon, doing shading first, and then colouring. 3. Make a pixel of another starter Pokémon, but instead of working from a lineart, start with a coloured shape and then work in the details. For all three of these assignments, please show your step-by-step progress, like in the example above!
4. Recolour one of the pixels to be shiny. 5. Neatly rezise one of your pixels to twice its size.