Gave him more solid dark areas and tried to make the sword less bright:

Thanks for all your effort Cyangmou! You've really contributed much to this thread 

Hi guys, here's an update:

spent all night trying to get this to work, this is what I came up with, what do you guys think?

@Cyangmou
Thank you for you nice edit, although as you say, not the same feeling as dark souls.
Your half right about the shield direction, the player does hold the shield like that, but black knight enemies hold it differently
here is a reference(so hard to find a screenshot of enemy black knights):
http://i.stack.imgur.com/kWZlm.png
Now that I look at it though, my shield is a little too small, I'm gonna work on the sword and shield a bit more

Also I have no limit on colors

@decored
Thank you for participating, however I can't see your second image, would you mind re-uploading it please?

Hi guys, I'm trying to make a black knight from Dark Souls, but I'm having trouble making it look good. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.



reference: http://extragamebox.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Dark-Souls-The-Dark-Knight-And-Black-Background.jpg

Ok, I tried to make the leaves a little more defined and the rows less obvious...