Any good free graphics programs for beginners who suck at art?

I'm not really that good at art and such, but I want to be able to at least make some passable graphics to use in basic game projects until I find someone who wants to help me out with art and stuff, and until I actually figure out what I want to make a game about.
I kind of want to use pixel art, but I don't think there's anything for easily making / animating basic pixel art.
If anyone knows of anything about a program that can be used to basically pin the body parts together and then just reposition them on key frames or something, that would even be passable.

there's a walk cycle generator here:
http://ssh.me.uk/walkcycle.html
I believe you can pin your own parts

The Gimp would be a good chioce its free, also use google images you might find some reference images

Eh, I've seen this before, but I dunno. To be honest though it looks terrible.

I believe something like spine, spriter or anime studio pro is what you are after...
they allow you to create bones/skeletons & layer over multiple images/limbs & animate via keyframes...

having said that; all 3 programs mentioned above are not free, but there is a new one I saw on kickstarter which looks quite nice, called "basis"...

their kickstarter project doesn't seem to be doing too well but I believe they already have all the basics packaged up into a demo & even if they don't get the kickstarter funding I think they still plan on working on the app with the intention of releasing as freeware.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1457278266/basis-bone-an...

I found Spriter yesterday, haha.
It's not free for the pro version early adaptor purchase.
But they do have a free beta version available for download. So I grabbed that.
I don't know it has any legal restrictions on using it for working on something that's meant to be sold though.

I believe we possibly have plans for adding support for spriter to VS in the future; possibly (well one of the bone apps)

I grabbed the beta version a while back, while it was on kickstarter...
I wasn't too impressed at the time, but that's because none of the 2D bone animation apps are much use for animation towards & away from the camera... they are more geared towards side-scrolling games.

other than that, they are pretty useful

Ah, yeah. I see what you mean.
But still, it's a neat program.
I just suck terribly at art, as much as I wish I was good at it.
I want to be able to throw things together to experiment with, but no artists are willing to help me until I have a firm idea of what I want my game to be. :C
Which I can understand, they don't want to make art that's going to be tossed out.

it's hard to find artists willing to do pro bono work & even harder to keep them on task & motivated; regardless of how good the idea & planning is - money is probably the biggest motivator, which is a bloody shame

Yeah.
That's why I wish I could find something suitable for making stand-in / placeholder graphics at least.

i had to try GIMP because my photoshop doesn't work in win7 and after a little time of learning i'm really happy with it. GIMP is a good one and you can find lots of help on the net when you're stuck.

Hello Yinsho
actually there is one very good program called iClone
personally I use it for my characters and animations
and they have a free trial ,you can try it if you like it go pro
this is the link: http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/

hope it helps