I like your legs, maybe photographing a model in the same pose would help.

Okay sorry I don't really have advices but XIAOOOO MY AN-EMO BOI....sorry.I think that overall the anatomy is really good,the legs are fine but I think that it's the foot which give this off-vibe ? The left feet is too small and the shape ain't right try to maybe study the shape and how is construct the feet.I really don't have critiques about the legs sorry TT maybe try to move or rotate the left leg upwards ?

hey! I'm not sure what a oleo technique is but i hope some of my critiques might help, first your background looks uneven and thin using more paint will help cover it up and hind the messy brush strokes. from what i see you seem to be using a strong lighting with a bit or orange back light (sorry if I'm wrong) but i think your darks are a bit too dark since you seem to be using pure black, maybe mix it with a bit of a blue (since warm lighting=cold shadows) to tone it down or add more orange lighting transition from the back light (something like in the pic below) another thing i see is the highlights on the face seems a little grey. here's a quick paint over i did to make my explanation more understandable, overall you painting looks awesome and keep experimenting with strong lighting! hope it helps

@Lea There's this thing Matt Kohr (the guy from http://www.ctrlpaint.com) calls "contrast creep" - it's when the spots of value contrast are spread across the piece without any stronger concentrated area, which results in the feeling that the piece looks distracting or lacks a focal point. In one of his courses, he shows an example of this with a painting of his own, then shows a remake of the same painting fixing that issue and achieving a more balanced global contrast (see first image attached). In your painting (which is actually pretty cool already!), when I squint my eyes and look at it, that's exactly what I notice: a lot of bright little areas that kind of diffuse the eye from a defined focal point (just like @Jan D. also noticed). An effective way to solve this would be to organize your composition into "areas of value": each part of the painting could prioritize a certain range of the value spectrum so that the different planes or spaces wouldn't compete with each other, and the overall contrast could feel more balanced and organized. In the second image I attached, there's a couple of examples of paintings where this technique is properly used: the one on the top is by Caravaggio, - although its crops with the overlaying histogram were also taken from one of Matt Kohr's courses - and the one on the bottom is by the man himself @Stan Prokopenko. An interesting thing to notice is that, in both paintings, although the value range is neatly organized according to the planes or spaces in the composition, the part of the painting where there is actually a wide value range (where lights and darks contrast more strongly) is the focal point (in Stan's painting, the bears; and in Caravaggio's, the face of the character to the left). Hope this helps! Hope it gives you insights on ways to improve your work. Let me know in case you have questions! Best regards o/

You can actually test out a simple value scheme of darks - midtone - lights in the thumbnail stage. If it reads well small, it will read well at full size. Try to simplify your scene, both in terms of shape and lighting, and it becomes a lot easier to figure out. Some artists also choose to do an under painting in gray or one color. Personally, I work in grayscale, rendering out all my values + edges and then use gradient maps to color. As for the hand, I think it's probably an anatomy / perspective / foreshortening issue? I'm not really sure what she's doing with the arm, so it's hard for me to give any advice. What might help is a reference. You can take a picture of yourself, use a 3d app or buy a ref pack. That's what helps me when I get stuck with a pose.

oh tell me about it. half the stuff I do, lives in the bottom half of the histogram:D I'd say you could try to use the values to direct the eye to the focal point a little more? Right now I get a little distracted by all the bright patches. Maybe using some strong atmosphere/ fog would work nice in this piece? Looks nice tho! Love the mood!:)

hey! really nice drawing i can see that you're trying to group the shadow shapes but i think what your missing is to use more dark values! your darkest values are at the hair, i think you can use some dark values around like on the neck to separate it from the head for a clearer read, or maybe some under the eyelids.(you can use the asaro head to learn more about it) another thing is the white of the eyeball is never pure while so i suggest you to tone it down using a little bit of grey. another thing i noticed is the lack of details in the ears you can look up some reference to help you visualize the details! since this drawing is from a year ago im sure your skills have improved beyond but i hope the critique is still helpful to you!

Nice work. First I would ask where you feel you struggled? I think the picture looks a little stuck between realism and cartoon, so sort of looks flat as mentioned by Dylan. If you want it to be more cartoon/Manga style, I would add more sharpness and line variation and outlines. If more towards realism, I would focus on enhancing lights and shadows to bring the contrast up and accentuate forms more. I hope this is useful!