What do you guys use when making custom tilesets and sprites?

I want my game to be original. I absolutely don't want to use anyone else's resources. I'd like to do all of the graphics from scratch myself. Am willing to learn stuff. What programs should I use? I already have gimp. Can you point me in the direction of any useful tutorials? Thanks.

Oh, and at the moment I am trying to put a train into my game. I love trains in video games. I want to draw it for my tileset. How would I do this?

Despite it being old, I use Graphics Gale, but it just has everything I need. It has a grid system for easy tilesetting. Erasing and transparency can be a bit tricky if you don't know what you're doing.
Here are a few spriting videos that have helped me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIK7LfqKBHY
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGKCyLUhwUaTOsO7xHUv6YicjM6KsaNlZ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLboNWgcKo8

gl on any pixel art you do

Dude. It's a fan game. You're already using other peoples' work. Your game is already unoriginal. Are you going to resprite every Pokemon, as well? At that point you're not even making a game you're just doing pixel art. It's going to take you so much time to do the graphics alone that you'll never get to the game. Lower your standards, pick an easier goal, and you'll get a lot more done.

Anyways, the program you use specifically doesn't matter as much. There are some that tile the image you're working on tilesets but as long as the program allows transparency (IE, not MS Paint) you'll be fine. There are tons of tutorials on deviantart, youtube, and on forums that try to describe how to do pixel art. I wish you luck in doing absolutely everything yourself.

I use Adobe Photoshop CS5 it's expensive but has so many tools that make my life easier. I had the program already because I was making basketball player updates for the NBA Live series so when I discovered RPG Maker and my love for Pokemon inspired me to make my own game it was great that I already had it.

I don't know, but paint.net helps a lot.

Honestly I've found everything I've needed for creating sprites using GIMP. My game uses Gen 3 overworld style, so it's pretty basic. I've done lots of customization to the Pokemon Essentials tilesets and created many new sprites/tiles. So far GIMP has done everything I need it to just fine. It handles transparency well, allows for layering, has easy coloring tools, and has grids you can set up to keep everything square. I've made a lot of unique sprites by using premade sprites as a base, then working from there. For example, I used the truck sprite and transformed it into a bulldozer by using the truck as the body, then adding parts onto it. I've also done this with lots of character sprites that already exist, then editing them to be my own characters.

I know you said you wanted to have all original designs, but I think this is the best and most realistic way. While the base image isn't your own, if you edit it enough others won't be able to tell what the base image was. That essentially makes it your own original sprite (while still fitting in with the Pokemon sprite style.)

Hi Prodigal, can you recommend any tutorials that might have helped you with tilesets? I'm getting to the point of adding new and custom tilesets. Any written or video tutorial would certainly help.