How should I go about learning art?

Study colour theory and building with primitive shapes.

I would focus on learning the principles of design and art first such as color theory, the grounds (foreground, midground, background), rule of thirds, etc... They are the foundation of all art, no matter the style. I would focus on learning realism and than break from it like most artists do. That being said, don't be so focused on having to be very proficient in more realistic than stylized art before you move to other styles. Just focus on making art, experiment, and just make things that interest you and drive you to experiment.

Pixel art is fundamentally similar to pointillism, which was a deconstruction of impressionism. You're drawing what you see using optical mixing to achieve greater depth than the constraints of your palette and/or canvas. To do this well, yes, you absolutely need to be skilled at interpreting forms, values, etc.

I liken this issue to people who learn to draw manga from manga - you're missing the point and end up with a distilled understanding of the style.

Learning only pixel art is not going to help long term but that depends what your end goal is.

You need fundamentals. Color, perspective, composition are a must is you want to get good quick.

The thing is that any advice you get, you won’t be able to fully comprehend until you are faced with problems on your art that you need to solve over and over again.

To keep it short, my advice would be to learn whatever you can from general fundamental art tutorials and try to see how pixel artists you like, implement those fundamentals. Practice what you’ve learned. Draw with a goal in mind, no matter how small, and then ask for feedback in a community that welcomes that sort of art. Seems the most active communities for art are on discord these days so try to find a good one for pixel art. When asking for feedback and critique on your art, don’t make it general. Say what your goal is.

Overall, when learning art is juggling a lot of balls, so to speak. Practice and study should go hand in hand and mileage is very important.

First step, just start drawing stuff. Realize that it "sucks", be OK with that, be happy with that, love your sucky art, and appreciate that you made something unique.

I started with some books about color theory and anatomy, and realized I needed to learn more about basic shapes, even though I was doing pixel art. The skills translate, and I started to appreciate other people's work and notice things like shading, motion, line thickness, etc.

But the thing that helped me improve the most? Just making sure I was doing it, and not treating it like work. I did it for my game, but also because I started to enjoy just making it. I have some art that isn't in my game because it was just for fun.

I'm still not great, but I've seen a lot of improvement. My greatest advice is not to worry about which method, but to just pick one thing and start doing it, and just start practicing and learning and reading. Which one you pick is less important than just starting to do it consistently. Don't focus on trying to become amazing. Just focus on being consistent and trying to learn from multiple different materials.

TLDR: Just start trying, iterate, try to figure out what you lack, and find a resource to fill that need. Read books, watch youtube, talk to other artists and get feedback. Don't spend a lot of time agonizing over choosing the right course or medium.

Proko is a fantastic idea. The courses are a bit more expensive compared to some other websites, but I know that they are high quality and recommended by many people. Also when you compare it to traditional college or in person classes it's basically pennies in the dollar.

There's also a subscription website called domestika.org that's $10 a month for unlimited streaming and you get to keep a course each month forever. I highly recommend doing some of their beginner drawing and beginner art courses. They have a lot of instructors that are working professionals who are basically as good as it gets. I know Proko instructors also are good as well. You can actually learn pixel art, digital art, and traditional art all at the same time. I would personally recommend starting out with traditional art because you don't have to deal with the technology getting in the way of learning, but it really all does just come down to you.

There are lots of different places to get beginner drawing lessons either through paid subscription videos, online through youtube, etc.

You need to make sure that whatever you're learning or doing remains *fun" otherwise you're just going to give up.

Another good resource is your local library. They actually might already have a program that has adult learning videos on art (Udemy, Lynda, Skillshare, etc.). You can also always pick up how to do certain types of art via books at your local library as well. If you go that route it basically cost nothing other than the gas to drive to the library.

I'm always learning and improving myself so I hope I offered some good options.

I would not recommend Draw a Box. Not because it necessarily is a horrible idea they're basically just drawing drills. If you're mindful about The strokes you're making when practicing art you don't really need to only do drills. Honestly most people that only do drills are probably going to give up very quickly. You can absolutely do it in addition to some of these other things though. That might be a good approach.

Use references. Don't draw from memory, your memory suck, look at reference, you'll notice the shapes, you'll notice how the lights hit the surface, the colors.
Also use a color palette, knowing your color is crucial, but you probably won't get it at first, so get a color palette, switch it from time to time, try new palettes and at some point you'll get it and be able to make your own colors, but you can't learn everything at the same time, focus to learn a thing a time and practice a lot.

You wanna make pixel art? Focus on that. Bang your head against the wall for a very long time until you make something that you like. That's what I did. Also, start too big, realise that 64x64 is insanely huge, and slowly reduce your pixel count until you find your sweet spot.

just practice, tutorials, no tutorials, palettes etc