I have NO experience in drawing or creating visual art of any sorts. I'd like to learn the techniques of drawing humans or game characters and perhaps create sprites. Can anyone point me in the proper direction? Thank you much :)

Before you even attempt to draw the human form (or any animal, for that matter), it is imperative to take a figure/general drawing class and study an anatomy book (particularily one made for artists). You have to understand the human form in order to draw it, and the best way is a combination of drawing from life (or at least master drawings (da Vinci, Raphael, etc)), and learning the actual anatomy. Otherwise you're going to get fustrated mighty, mighty quick.

Ah, thanks for the reply. Can you recommend any texts as an introduction to the process?

Check out:

The Human Figure in Motion

How to Draw Manga Volume 1

How to Draw Manga: Bodies and Anatomy

Those three books will help you alot in learning to draw the human form. Don't knock the Manga books just because they're manga books, they are still really good references.

My favorite anatomy book is:
Human Anatomy made Amazingly Easy- by Christopher Hart (the most straight-forward anatomy book around, IMO, definately get this)
And if you can't draw live models, a good Master drawing book is:
Anatomy Lessons from the Great Masters- by Robert Beverly Hale & Terence Coyle
For general drawing, there are a number of books. I have one named The Fundamentals of Drawing by Barrington Barber, I like it well enough. Practice is the most important thing though, just keep drawing and drawing and drawing.

Once you can draw well enough, then you can move onto digital painting (when you're at this level, I'd suggest asking for recommendations again), which will put you that much closer to producing game art. Once you learn Photoshop well enough, and can paint, then you can really start making very high quality graphics.

Thanks, I sincerely appreciate your guys' counsel. I'll give it a shot and see what happens :)

Take a look at fineart.sk

You can browse the Loomis Books online there.
http://www.fineart.sk/index.php?cat=1

You can download "Figure Drawing For All It's Worth" as a PDF at http://www.saveloomis.org ...
not sure if the other books there are complete.

I'd also recommend spending some time at art centered forums. There are ...
http://forums.sijun.com (especially interesting for illustrators)
http://conceptart.org/forums for concept-artists (not the best forum for beginners ... recommended only as a lurker)
http://www.wetcanvas.com (you should start with a pencil, digital comes later)
and the Drawing Board at http://www.sketchbooksessions.com/thedrawingboard/index.php

Take a look at the websites of the members there ... a lot of them have tutorials.

Draw, draw, draw, and draw some more. When you're done drawing, draw twice as much. Never stop practicing, ever. Ever.

If you do what I just mentioned, it should come to you pretty fast.

Also, draw examples of people from reference pictures or in public - not from what you remember them to look like. Draw from still life and action, just draw anything and everything.

Enjoy!

Take a look at this thread
I've gathered some links to sites and articles about drawing.

-Fenryl