i know, i noticed that my skills in 2D and 3D improved, now consider this Helm.
In my earlier topic where i made a commando with a gun (red shirt, black pants, grey gun) it was not improving much as i spent more hours on it. But when i made it my own way in 15 minutes. and posted it as a full edit, everyone was shocked on the massive improvement in my work... you wrote : "what you're doing doesn't lend for good 2d art," , i can't agree with that.
i know that pixelart done by hand, pixel by pixel, greatly improves color understanding, depth and shading skills, and i will go with that because i see improvement in my work. But my BASE, will still be my own way of creating pixelart, as i dont have to spend hours, but minutes, on the rough sketch.
My goal is still to learn perfect color management, shading, anatomy and additional skills like hue shifting, selout and color diffuse.
This forum helped me a lot and i hope it will do so regardles of the way i make my sketches for my pixelart.