Maybe its just me. Everything I ever tried to draw in Paint looked bad, like a three year olds coloring book
this post is what people took as a low confidence thing.
The negativity comment was in regards to how, even though we gave you very good advice, you declined this simple suggestion and said that Paint was crap and that it wasn't good for spriting, despite some seasoned spriters working only with paint.
The point is, although there are some programs that work better, it is in the beginning spriter's best interest to start with paint, and draw each sprite individually (as opposed to Gimp, which copies your pics across the board, I think), that way, you get much more time working on sprites and becoming better.
I would say that if you can only draw the equivilant of a kid's coloring book in paint, you need to start with editing sprites. I never read a tutorial, but can make very nice sprites if I am so inclined, simply because I learned how to edit sprites before I attempted customs.
Just give it a shot, and soon, you will realize that making sprites from scratch isn't all that hard.... Also, working from a template ensures, if nothing else, that a pattern is maintained.
That may not seem important, but trust me, if there isn't a pattern, you sprites will look out of place, unless, of course, they are all custom.