Beginner's Tips for Making Sprites and Backgrounds?

[Ethereal Grace]

I'm a fairly experienced artist with physical mediums like pencil, pastels, paints, etc but I've only recently been able to think about creating digital art. I recently got a new PC and I am going to be getting a Wacom Bamboo tablet in the mail next week sometime. I also invested in Jot Dash stylus that feels more like the pens and pencils I'm used to.
I played around on Sketchbook for a bit and think I will be able to adapt well enough to it. GIMP was a bit more difficult but I can work on it. The interface was a tad confusing, I thought.
I've been researching sprite making and I know that I need a program that is capable of background transparency. Are there any art programs with a fairly simple interface that are great for making sprites as well as backgrounds? I can't spend a lot on a program since most of my savings went toward my PC and tablet.
Are there any in-depth tutorials you can recommend? What is the best way to implement layers? I will gratefully accept any tips you would care to share!
Making a visual novel has been a childhood dream of mine and I'm excited to make it a reality.
I have a WWFFY quiz series that has received some great feedback and I'm hoping to adapt it into a visual novel.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post! I greatly appreciate any and all help.

[robovelociraptor]

I've never used it, so I couldn't tell you if it was good or not, but you could try using FireAlpaca for your digital artwork. It has transparency, the interface looks pretty simple, and it's free. This is a tumblr ask blog for it. I'm sure you can probably find some tutorials online as well, since it seems relatively popular.

For layers, if you want to go extremely simple you would only have 2 layers (besides the ones for expressions, poses, ect.): lineart and color. However, I usually make several layers ontop of the colors one for shading and highlights respectively and several layers for lineart because I erase a lot and don't want to mess up lines I'm not working on. I dunno if FireAlpaca has folders, but they're really helpful and pretty much a requirement for keeping your sprites organized.

As tutorials on how to make sprites, here's some I found:
Deji's Step-by-Step Guide to Making Sprites
Konett's Guide To Making Sprites
Taosym's High-Resolution Sprite Tutorial (This is literally just how to make sprites HiRes, but it was a big help to me.)

You can probably find a lot more tutorials on Deviantart, Tumblr, and even on here. But even before reading those tutorials, I would HIGHLY reccomend getting used to your program of choice and figuring out most, if not all of it's features. Anyhow, good luck and welcome to the world of digital art!

[Ethereal Grace]

Thank you so much! That is super helpful. I tried some Google searches and it was pretty overwhelming and a lot of the tutorials were over my head as a beginner. There were also a ton of art programs mentioned but virtually nothing about Sketchbook. I was wondering if that was an unsuitable program for sprites when I saw how little it was mentioned in creator circles.
I've bookmarked the pages you've linked so I can study them in detail. I appreciate you taking the time to help a newbie!

[robovelociraptor]

No problem! I think the trick to finding tutorials, or anything for that matter, is to search for particularly specific things.

You can use Sketchbook to make sprites, sorry, I guess I skimmed over it when I wrote my first post. Just create a layer with nothing on it under all the other layers and then export the file as a .psd, which can then be opened in GIMP, where you can delete the layer with nothing on it. Even if you can't find a lot of tutorials for Sketchbook, just try messing around in it, I find that's the funnest, and possibly easiest way to learn. Most of the time it's not a matter of what program you're using, just that you have experience with what you're working with/on and can utilize the program to the fullest extent.

[Ethereal Grace]

Thank you! I've kept Gimp and Sketchbook but also downloaded FireAlpaca which I am loving! I figure I'll keep all three. Having more than one program doesn't seem like it will hurt and I may end up using all three at some point. I will probably use FireAlpaca the most though. I love the interface and the simplicity of the layout. Thank you very much for suggesting it!