I've been trying to get batter at drawing things I need for what I'm working on. For the artistically talented out there - bravo, you guys are awesome. There seems to be a lot of smaller techniques I need to get better at before I can begin to create stuff that looks semi good. I had no passion for drawing, it was simply a means to an end to create a game, but as I work more on it, I can begin to see the appeal. 

And even then, drawing is just one part of it. Making animations is a whole new, tedious thing to do - at least if you're a beginner like I am. 

But I personally believe this, if you can both draw really well and program/configure really well, you darn near have a superpower in the game dev space. :/

Despite being a beginner, I really want to hurry up with the art side of things and to get to more programming, and plan to go to one of those tutor sites to have someone look over my shoulder. 

Would this be a good way to get better, or am I just wasting my money and there are better ways to both improve and make progress with my project at the same time? 

When it comes to learning things, everyone is slightly different, so maybe a tutor site might work for you, or maybe not.

I'd say that when it comes to learning something creative, like drawing, animation, music or programming, it's beneficial to try and find the fastest path to being able to have a little fun and play around with the medium. If you can find yourself having fun and playing; you'll become more interested in learning more.

I'd usually recommend finding a basic tutorial on something, just to get you started, then trying to play around with what you've learnt. This will be your starting point. It sounds like you've already started playing around with drawing, so maybe you can skip to the next step.

After making a few things with your current level of knowledge, pick one thing that you want to improve. Since you're just starting, you might want to improve many things at once, but try to pick just one thing. With drawing; you might be able to pick up certain things by just looking at works that you like, or maybe you need to research the topic. Once you're confident enough to play around with the additional thing that you've learnt; you pick another thing to improve on and repeat.

I know this sounds terribly slow, but it will speed up over time. Try to keep it fun and experimental. I think that if you're using your own artwork in your games, you'll become even more motivated once you can see a finished game that's made up of your drawings, irrelevant of your current skill level. There's something special about seeing the pieces come together.

I had a similar issue when I was learning to compose music and the above is sort of the system I used to teach myself to compose. I'm still not great at it, but I now happily compose my own music for the games I make.

I hope this helps a bit. I'm sure that you'll figure it all out if you keep trying.

If you want customised graphics but don't want to draw your own, look at software that renders images. For example, Blender, Poser, Daz and Iclone are all 3D applications that can render a 2D graphic. 

You place the 3D object in the scene, select render (which in this instance is the process of creating a 2D image from a 3D scene) and you have professional looking graphics. 

Check out Renderosity. They have a large free section (make sure the items allow commercial use). Daz is free but doesn't include much content. You pay for Poser (available at Renderosity) but Poser includes a huge graphics library  and animations which you can apply and render. You can customise the 3D graphics which lets you make your game unique. 

You can see some videos and screenshots on my website. I used Poser to render the graphics (most of the graphics I bought at Renderosity and customised them). 

There's still a learning curve - I've been playing around with 3D graphics for years, and am also a minor vendor at Renderosity, but it's quicker than drawing everything.

The more you do a thing, the better at it you'll be :) You should try the "fail faster" strategy. Basically just do a ton of really small projects that take no more than a day or two to complete and work your way up. Start with limitations so you can flex your creativity. Don't be afraid to use references or try to recreate other pieces. I hope that helps <3 

@K. A. Laherty That helps a ton, thanks. I definitely appreciate the slow and steady approach. So far, I'm focusing on shapes and gestures, instead of perceptive, proportions, and all that other advanced stuff. I'm totally not ignoring those completely, but shapes and gestures is what I judge myself the most critically on for the time being. 

@Evolutionary Games - You see, I tried stuff like that, and I really hate to be the begging chooser, but I find it hard to generate images to my liking and in the style, I'm striving for. Perhaps I can use that stuff to generate assets for things I really don't care to put too much effort on, like random background objects, but using it primarily is not my current plan. 

@ohmygiggles - It's a good thing I have a passion for game dev. I think that's the perfect place for me to try what you suggest. I'm definitely going to have more than a few art projects to work on in order to put what I'm working on together. 

I've been thinking about this question, and what I came up with is two conditions. I should seek a tutor if:

1) No tutorial has been made that can help me do what I'm trying to do

2) I can't make much progress on my own.

Basically, for hyper specific stuff, that's when someone should seek a pro.