Canvas? LIke what dimension? Never heard of using a canvas for pixel art. Just saying.....

8x8?

16x16?

32x32?

Talking height and width here. Just remember the rule of 2....or maybe it was 4 or 8. Idk, I can't remember but, I hope you get the idea.

As for what's popular. People do Pixel Art today but, I would not really say it's Pixel Art. You can computer generate 3D Meshes for those things if you wanted.

Perhaps, if you showed an example of the art style you're going for?

I don't entirely know what the popular dimensions are these days but, I say make up your own. You can do a lot of things with pixel art but, usually the smaller dimensions are for my old school stuff. The medium dimensions are for game boy advance games. If you want to do something new school, think big. I mean, you could literally have sprites that are 128x128 or some odd dimenion like 50x30 or 88x31......(that last one is actually the size of affiliate icons websites use to have back in the day lol)

*chuckles*

But, anyhow.....are you looking for what software to use? You have to be more descriptive with what you are asking and try to convey your idea a bit more. You're speaking on a forum, not some chatroom.

For some reason, I thought maybe this devlog may help you. He's a friend of mine. He's into 2D Art but, as you can see, it's 2D, not entirely "Pixel Art". So be specific, and be descriptive on what you are looking for. When you say canvas, I think more of this art style. Just trying to push you in the right direction because this question was forwarded to me specifically. Hopefully, some of this may help.

if you need opinion, make a google forms or surveymonkey questionnaire with everything you wanna ask and ask a mod if you can post it here.

more streamlined than a forum thread