What it says in the title. I am looking for "top-down"/"2.5D"/"3/4 View" games (class JRPG perspective like A Link to the Past & The Chaos Engine) that feature low-resolution / pixel art character sprites which are drawn in a more realistic way, not Chibi style with the huge heads like in A Link to the Past and pretty much all the other Japanese RPGs. It's ok if the sprites are stylized with broad bodies and slightly bigger heads; at this resolution (between 32 to 64 pixels high) it's unavoidable to a certain degree.

So far I have:

Metal Gear (NES)
Dragonstone (Amiga)
The Chaos Engine
Dark Sun

I genrally use a 3d model rendered from different camera angles. This helps get the proportions right. It requires a suitable model, program, and the skills to use it, so it might not be for everybody, but it helps me a lot because I only need to trace over the rendered image to block out the major features while ensuring that the sprite is consistent from all angles.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. When you are starting out, just take a tile or sprite you like and look at it, try to find out how the artist arranged the pixels, which colors he or she used, how the graphic looks zoomed in and out, and so on. Find out what kind of style you like, which resolution and sprite sizes you prefer, and then take a piece as inspiration and try to create something similar, modify it a bit, and learn.

The Chaos Warrior is heavily armored, so add at least one pixel thickness to arms and legs