I can confirm this. I struggled a lot with making pixel art because I was trying to draw the outline with pixels and would always fail (except for rectangular inanimate objects like boxes and similar).
Then I tried to sketch first and it worked great. Here's the process:
1. draw by hand on paper
2. scan it (I take photos with my phone)
3. scale it down to the size you need
4. draw the outline (make sure two pixels do not touch except diagonally)
5. color with base colors
6. add shading
For steps 5 and 6 make sure you pick a consistent palette beforehand. Something with limited set of colors (say, up to 24) works best.
P.S. You can check the graphics I created this way in my Twitter feed (@mbabuskov). Look for the horse-shaped robot and the spaceship images and see how those look way better than other stuff I drew earlier.
With all due respect, I just looked at your pictures and it doesn't look like you're sketching right. Like, they're "ouch" level bad, 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. Sorry.
My best suggestion would be to actually go through some exercises in the books I mentioned. You should see massive improvement within days.
Then I tried to sketch first and it worked great. Here's the process:
1. draw by hand on paper
2. scan it (I take photos with my phone)
3. scale it down to the size you need
4. draw the outline (make sure two pixels do not touch except diagonally)
5. color with base colors
6. add shading
For steps 5 and 6 make sure you pick a consistent palette beforehand. Something with limited set of colors (say, up to 24) works best.
P.S. You can check the graphics I created this way in my Twitter feed (@mbabuskov). Look for the horse-shaped robot and the spaceship images and see how those look way better than other stuff I drew earlier.