WIP, need help, stuck, first time doing Pixel art.

[FrogFood]

This is my first time doing pixel art and wanted to make a spikeman or something of the sort. I decided to start by doing it without much detail and add the details when the character was formed so that is why the character has simple colors and all.



The thing now is that my lack of talent in drawing seems to be causing trouble now. I am stuck in more than one places. First are the boots. I simply cannot draw the boots, i am unable to, they look bad and i have absolutely no clue how to make them look good. Then there is the helm. Like the boots, it does not look good, in fact it looks more like hair than a helm. So what i need is someone to tell me what to do, mainly on those two parts, but also in general if there is anything to fix or change. I would also like some advice for the details, the face and other things like that. I work better with examples and visuals but any help is fine

Thanks

[MysteryMeat]

dont use black lines for small details, first off. the divisions in the head plate would be better emphasized by a darker shade of red or a brown.

as for the boots, work from a reference! there's no shortage of samurai armor pics online thanks to the early-aughts surge in weeaboo culture, take advantage of the fruits born from many a miss-spent youth!

[FrogFood]

Update.


I changed the colors a bit. I managed to fix the helmet, it looks much better now and for the divisions in the head plate i used a dark red instead of a black/ dark grey. I also managed to make some much better boots. I am not sure where to go from here, i think his left shoulder could be better. I'd also like to add more details on the armor but i don't know where to start nor what color to use.

Now that i look at it, i think one of the legs is too big, or maybe the other one is too small i can't really tell if they are fine. At least they are better than they were.

Again, any feedback is appreciated.

[Pizza Tom]

Just a quick color edit, I didn't move any of your pixels. I combined a few of your colors that were almost identical, you can definitely get more use of your current colors by re-using them. Also dropped the bright white to a gray, it really jumps out and detracts from the piece imo. You may do well to ditch the 100% black, too.

It's not a bad piece! Especially for your first. Considering it is your first though, you may want to start smaller- you could easily fit this much detail in half the room. Then you'd have less overall detail to worry about, which may help you move forward with this piece. Totally your call though, if you feel comfortable adding a lot of detail at this scale, more power to you.

By the by, this forum scales images when clicked, so you should post your work at 1x scale.