CandyFace
Hi wsbruzzi
This is a difficult question to answer but I'll try to give you some starting points.
Making pixelart, like drawing traditionally or digitally all requires fundamental understanding of various subjects. if you're trying to draw characters, then study anatomy. Look at references, search for body poses, additionally, try to draw on paper first, because when you pixel, you have to convey more information into less space. Lighting and shadows are everything, think about where you position your light and how it makes your character look different. Understand color theory as colors can make or break a creation...
Create a character and share it, be prepared for constructive feedback and learn from it. You mention that you've created some characters before, but you think they're all crap.
The only way to know for sure, to become better, is to post them so other people can help you understand the faults in them. You're welcome to make a thread here too, but you'll likely get more answers on either Pixeljoint or pixelation.
With the above ramble in mind, there exist lots of tutorials and forums that can help you become a better pixel artist, these threads in particular are both really good:
http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=2076.msg161933#msg161933
There is no exact way to start, because you can get into it from many different angles. Just start somewhere and work your way through topics you find interesting. Both forums has so much material that should keep you occupied for a long time.
As for where I started myself.. beside having done both traditional and digital for years on and off, it's only recently (~2 years) that I started doing pixelart. I too started with characters and even so.. tried to animate them. Browsing pixelation.org has helped me a ton, reading topics there was what made a jump in my earlier creations and my newer... I can't recommend enough to look at the various threads, read the comments and look at the before and after results. Additionally you can use your old creations and try to work out their problems using the tips you've gathered from reading the forum comments.
This ended up becoming longer than I anticipated and a bit too much rambling, but I hope you found it useful anyway ;)
