Original Character painting! looking for critique

Nice! This is a lovely painting.

I have possibly a few suggestions to give you and to make them clearer I did a quick-ish paintover, so I hope you mind.

First I wanted to check the character's anatomy just to make sure everything was okay.

The only thing I really found was that the placement of her left arm made it so she looked she didn't really have a neck, so I moved it.

And then here's the rough paintover I did.

The first thing I noticed is that you used a lot of whites or bright near white color to shade the highlight. You usually want to keep those for the light sources, very reflective surfaces or small highlights. Normally lighted object don't go as bright as a light source. I also tried to define the hair a bit better as in your illustration the hair come across a little bit as being of a similar material than her dress.

Then, since she is in overall blue environment, I added blues to her skin to tone it down a little, especially in the shadows. In that same vein, I darkened the left side of the picture using a darker blue and brought back some of the highlights to really allow for the magical glow effect to shine and add more ambience. Then I did the same on the right side using a bright yellow to add a soft glow of light.

Lastly, I thought that the environment was a little too ambiguous, so I added the suggestion of some archways in the back and added some details on the platform she's standing on just to add a bit more context to the scene. If you want to do something like that feel free to add whatever you want, those are just what popped into my mind while I did it.

I hope this was helpful and that it didn't come across as harsh or anything. Remember that a lot of those are just suggestions that you can try, so feel free to take what you want and ignore the rest.

Keep on painting!

I've reread my previous comment and while I pointed out a lot of stuff I'd change, I'd also like to point out some of the good things you did.

First, your focal point is very clear. We instantly get drawn to the character when looking at your picture.

Then the overall color palette is very nice. You have a main palettes of blues and yellows which while not exactly complementary colors, still gives a nice contrast of colors. It's a color scheme I think I use a lot too Then you also have a touch of orange which contrast very well against the blue and is analogous to yellow so it all work together pretty well.

And lastly you have the storytelling aspect. As I said, we are already drawn to your character and you did a good thing by making her do something. The way she's leaning forward touching to that magical flower and looking at the magic glow makes us feel like there something going on and makes us want to learn more about her and what is happening.

So all of that to say that you have a nice foundation already, it just needs those little extra things to bring it to the next level

Hi! Great idea!

For me it is always helpful to gather some references and draw character without any clothes.

I'm not very good at anatomy, but here is my quick try:

2019_01_13_cubebrush_001.png2800x2000 1.56 MB