I'm working on making a portrait of my lovely friend, but I am wondering if I am doing it right, since this is like my 3rd time trying pixel art, and I sorely lack ALL traditional art skills. Regardless, I gave a crack at it. Well, here it is.

I still have a lot to do I think, but I want to know if I'm in the right direction, since I don't really know what I'm doing with pixels besides having a slight idea. I haven't finished the glasses nor have started the ears.
What's getting me is the shading. I haven't really tried as much yet as I should, especially on the cheeks I just sort of threw a cluster just because, but I just don't understand how to shade to save my life

I look at references and I think to myself how the

does the shading make sense, and then when I try to copy it, it ends up looking nothing like the references; it ends up looking flat and random shading clusters....
OK, I would really appreciate help, but I really want to do this on my own. I mean I don't want someone to show me exactly how to correctly shade and then just copy it, because I want to do it for my friend. In that case, someone to direct me on shading, and everything else like pixel technique would be MUCH appreciated
OH, and the nose is really messed up. Definitely need to continue tweaking that
