In April-May 2022, I took a course in pixel art offered Michigan State University through Coursera.org. In the course I learned how to create and animate pixel art assets with concepts such as lighting and pixel hatching before learning how to import the art to Unity. I created a player character with a cannon as well as a couple of monstrous enemies such as a Blade Ghoul, Floating Shark Head Ghoul, and an Evil Walking Ship Helm. They each have a couple of animations such as idling or attacking.
I primarily used Asesprite, a pixel art tool, to create these assets and it was very helpful in speeding up the creation process.
You can find an animated mockup I did of the scene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z-ydLOR6H0