Advice on getting into video game artwork for someone with a drawing background?

Hoping there are some game artists here that may be able to help. I've been wanting to get into video game style artwork, particularly pixel art for awhile now.

The upside is I have a drawing background, primarily centered on traditional media, but some digital as well (couple older digital examples here and here ).

The downside is that I feel there is still large gap in knowledge and skill trying to move from realism to something like pixel art which is highly abstracted. Despite knowing how to draw, pixel art seems like arcane wizardry to me.

I have sought out various pixel tutorials. But I find a lot of tutorials written by people who know what they are doing start at the end. What I mean is they go through a largely mechanical process to demonstrate how to do it (e.g. draw an outline, fill in colors, shade + details, and poof you're done!). However they don't seem to focus much on the underlying artistry (i.e. the mental side of art) of what is going on.

For example, I can easily sit down in front a lamp and draw a realistic depiction of that lamp. But if I wanted to turn that lamp into a 16x16 video game sprite, that's where I get lost; that's where I have a knowledge gap.

My questions therefore are:

• a) Is this something that pixel artists just take for granted and it comes with the process of just trying pixel art?
• b) Are there any tutorials or resources focused on the abstraction of objects (aka the mental side) of pixel art?
• c) Any other tips for abstraction in general when it comes to digital/video game art?

Thanks!