I'm sorry Terley, that wasn't a very constructive reply.

Inarma, your innapropriate overuse of the word "sprite" to denote anything you or anyone posts makes it incredibly confusing and frustrating for these kind people to help you in your endeavour to create a character portrait.  In the context of this forum, a sprite would be a piece of small pixel art (a character, tile, HUD piece, (perhaps even a portrait, yes) etc.) that is to be placed in a larger piece (ie. a game or mock-up).  Other than the portraits you've made yourself, the references you've been posting have been drawings and 3D renderings, images, pictures, but not sprites by a long shot.  For everyone's sake, please try and use more accurate terms.

As far as drawing your own references, this is not being suggested solely for the purpose of pixelling it, but to improve your art skills as a whole.  While this is indeed a pixel art forum, it is definitely still an art forum.  Helm is recognizing that (as he has in many people) before you do this portrait, or any other pixel piece, you may want to step back and try drawing some of these things on paper, to know what you're looking for, to practice your grasp of forms.  If you simply try to convert someone else's art to pixels, art that they have spent years learning to do, you won't be learning anything yourself, and will end up with a less than satisfactory result.

So, yes, please try drawing for yourself.