NEED HELP WITH SPRITE SIZE

Previously around a week back I saw this gaming magazine snapshots of games with stunning pixel art...
I decided to work on my skills to recreate this quality of art ..... But each time I worked on it , what happened was the outline was way too thick sometimes , the features where not seen properly...Until....I realized the problem....The Size ....

I would really like to know the size of the canvas ( or whatever you call it ) you guys use to draw sprites.
Quicker replies would be appreciated.

Depends what you want. I use 16*16 a LOT now, used to use 32*32 a bit too.64*64 is commonly used too, but in my opinion it's too big. Your choice The smaller the canvas the easier IMO.

I've tried all those sizes , yet there is no 'HD' effect present , the graphics I saw were like crazy , crystal clear and HD ( if pixel art has HD).

OH right, those either 1:aren't pixelart, they're vectors or 2: use much larger sizes than that. for sprites in games, i reccommend 64 64 max. There is no such thing as 'hd', theres only a certain amount of pixels you can fit on screen, so i doubt even vectors would make a difference

A modern technique for pixel art is to have it look like true pixel art but actually be higher resolution. That lets you cheat on some things like the border.

Can you give us some examples of the style you are looking for?

You mean something like this
http://gas13.ru/v3/pixelart/O_o_by_gas13.gif

Realm of the Mad God uses pixel art but adds a thin border at a smaller pixel size.

You mean this?

If u do, it is a mix of pixel art with regular photoshop skills

You mean this?

If u do, it is a mix of pixel art with regular photoshop skills

YUP THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I MEANT!!

 

What is the size?

That particular image shows in my chrome dev console as 525x394 pixels. That said, I don't know if that's the original dimensions or not. I have this game (recently obtained via the Humble Android Bundle 4 - pay your own price) and the size of the screens vary depending on the needs of the level.

True "pixel-art" or 8-bit, 16-bit do not use a traditional border as seen in drawing. Instead its almost like painting first you can sketch out what your trying to create with black borders and as you add color to the drawing change the black border to shades of light and dark that correspond with the image. This tutorial may help you out. http://www.derekyu.com/?page_id=221

Also consider this, create your assets on an 8x8 or 16x16 canvas. Make them as detailed as you can, then if you want a more and more "HD" look expand the image size to 32x32 or if your feeling really crazy 64x64. I personally do everything in 8x8 and if I dont believe the point came across Ill slowly increase the size to get the desired outcome.

'true pixel art'? I'm sure that it can have an outline o.O If you're doing it in 8x8, then yeah outline is probably unnecessary, but outlines are perfectly valid

I had problems with this too. Thanks for the info people. 

I normally use 24*48 for actors (both player controlled and NPCs) and 48*48 for constructional sprites if the size of the level is bigger than average. Otherwise 32*64 for actors and 64*64 for constructional sprites would be a good option. Hope this helps