The secret is constructing the body. Draw the entire figure before you start thinking about clothing. Skirts look awesome, but if you draw them before the pelvis you'll confuse yourself.
Draw pose -> Construct body -> add clothing -> line art -> ...

I used to get my grandma to cross stitch pixel art for me. It is cool idea to do! 

Heya, it looks pretty sweet already. I think the biggest problem you have is the big brick wall stealing all the attention. With textures, the inner variation is a lot more important than the shading. try to break up the bicks less evenly. Take a look at this texture from team fortress 2:

Check out how they but all the emphasis in the texture in the variation between the bicks while most of the texture is just a monotone flat color. Take a look at how they make larger blops out of similar coloured bricks to make it interesting.

Try to break it up a bit. Walls are rarely this bare, if you go to a real bar you'll see they pack the walls full of pictures and quriosities. check out this picture I googled:
In the world of your game, what would the bartender like to show his visitors? probably he's been working there for years and met a lot of adventures who've left souvenirs.

tl;dr
- simplify bricks, get rid of shading
- add variation in brick color
- hint at objects that tell a story about the location

He's so cute! I had to make a friend for your friend.