I'm looking for a good tutorial on drawing 32x32 and 64x64 sprites. I've got one on 16x16 but they aren't big enough, and they're so deformed because of the small size that making bigger sprites like those would just look bad. Does anyone know where there are some good tutorials? I'm trying google, but haven't found anything so far.

You should invest time in drawing software like The GIMP so you can use its drawing tools to get the effects that you want.

I wouldn't suggest that you just draw pixels with the cursor. You can get nice sprites and effects when you mix blending and blurring and manipulating colour gradients (for example).

And to get good at doing it... a book wont make you good -- practice would.

Al I have for software is Paint, and I'm not likely to be getting anything else anytime soon. But I need some sprites before I can do any more coding. I don't know, are there any good freeware programs I could use?

But even if I had the right software and knew how to use it, I don't know what a sprite of that size should look like. Are there any games I could look at that use those sizes?

But you should never use The Gimp.

I disagree! they are powerful tools for artists, however they are not so powerful for untalented people.
You have basically two ways, the old-school(see Johan's link), and the new way, using basically Photoshop(or the Gimp or any other similar tool), if you use the latter you only need to downsize your graphics to 32x32(or whatever) and let the antialiasing do the hard work!, and if you are using color palletes you have options to limit the amount of colors.
What tools are you using?

I can't imagine drawing lots of sprites in Paint.. Something like The Gimp that has a large toolbox and lots of filters is what I recommend (although the filters aren't as important as the tools when it comes to pixel art). Using Paint gets very tedious very fast IMO.

[edit]

Then again, my pixeling sucks, and people have drawn the Mona Lisa in Paint, so forget everything I just said.

I would have to second (or third?) Paint.NET (not just "Microsoft Paint").

Others have suggested Gimp, which is alright if you're a bit heavier into graphics. However, for simple designs, I would go with PdN (Paint.NET) if you use Windows, since it is very simple, and all the plugins (for special effects or abilities to import/export to different file formats like PCX, etc.) are open-source and available from their forums.

My new favorite is using the layers ability. I don't think I ever really understood how to use them efficiently until I saw how the artist for Ctrl-Alt-Del was turning them on/off, moving them around, shading things with them, etc. He shows how he did a few holiday cartoons here.

So I would suggest that, taking your 16x16 pixel, stretching it to 32x32 or 64x64, and then tweaking it with blending, filters, and stuff (using layers, of course, so you don't mess up a bunch of stuff ).

The originator of this thread did not specify if he/she/it was interested in a particularly aesthetic look.
Is there a powerful reason not to use alpha sprites?
However, for an old-school look, obviously we should avoid sprites with alpha channel.

Hey Dennis! I was looking to your art! really good works! it seems that you are very experimented pixel artist!
I have some old pixel works done, but now I find 3d modeling + sprites pre-renderization faster than doing pixel art, believe it or not.

In most cases yes, but sometimes filters and effects can be useful. For example, say you wanted to change the tint of your sprite from green to red as a variation or you just didn't like the green. The only way to do it in MS Paint and some other programs is replacing every pixel.

Yes, those are the biggest features missing from MS Paint. I also like have quick and easy cut tools and flipping/rotating tools as well.

Thanks, I guess.
[grammar nazi mode]
"experimented"?(for the following I assume you meant experienced, but I'll continue using experimented, 'cause I think it's funny) Yes, I got experimented a bit but not very much, mainly because of a lack of time(yah, I know this excuse is getting more and more lame the more often it is given).
[/grammar nazi mode]
If I got a dollar everytime I heard someone say that my works are good, I'd already have accumulated about 20 dollars over the past few years(which actually is quite the hint that I'm really just an amateur and not as good as thousands of real artists out there).:P

Do you still have them? May I see them? (maybe I could learn something from looking at them)

That's the spirit!;D

Hm, I just looked again and I was wrong, it does support a 1x preview window while in zoom mode and as Zaphos pointed out, it also has up to 800% zoom. The cut and paste features are poor though, as they don't support transparent cuts (which I (ab)use a lot for spriting).

MSPaint is win at least for the rough stuff. Shading and gradients and such can be done in other programs. I use Photoshop Elements since it came with my tablet.

PS: Nice links Johan.

I find Paint Shop Pro 5 good for spriting as it doesn't go over kill on all the additional features. This link is pretty good for bigger sprites (64 x 64 being possibly the lower limit of how effective it might be). As everyone else has said the best way to get good at 32 x 32 sprites is to draw loads and loads of them, same with everything else I guess.