Bitmaps

[roy@eckerd.edu (Jonathan Roy)]

I have a friend who is a professional artist (paintings, album/CD covers, etc)
and I could probably interest him in making some full color bitmaps
for things... Is there any mechanism for supporting real 16 color icons
for each bitmap? (All icons now are monochromatic, right? (All of one
color...) 

I'd like to see some real, full color, bitmaps. That'd make the game look alot
nicer, I think...

There'd have to be a way create the bitmaps with a decent paint program, however.
Is there any goos free ones? (I've never used xpaint... Is it any good?)
He's used to Photoshop, but of course, we don't have that at my school. :)