Creating High Quality sprites question

I love making and Editing sprites but Id like to know what software and tools I would need to create sprites like this picture from a He-man and She-ra mobile game , I would love to create 2d style sprites like the picture below , I have a drawing tablet called XP-PAD but it's rather small and I'm finding it rather hard to draw with because of this , what would you guys recommend ? I also have paint shop pro 7 , Gimp And Paint.net but not sure which is best since I don't really know how to use them to the best of their ability atm , When I make sprites they always look like they have come from the Nes to SNES era of gaming , but Id like to try drawing more High quality.

Any tips or points in the right the direction would be greatly appreciated.