Hi @Kat, I tried doing a brief paint over in the value stage going over some concepts you may want to consider. Thank you for pointing me to @Achoosi's instagram page! The was super helpful and I can totally see their work influencing your paintings. I think one hallmark of their style is that they go for a more cinematic/rendered look that contrasts with a very stylized anime style. In order to pull that off, they demonstrate a pretty solid understanding of light on form in their paintings. I think most of my critique is going to address the lighting in your piece. So based on your image, it looks like you have 3 light sources in your piece, all of which are candles. Candles tend to be a weaker source of light. As you can see in the image that Moonless_Sky uploaded, candles strongly illuminate the immediate area around them, but the power of the light falls of rather quickly. With this in mind, I made the candle lights in the back less powerful, just so that the emphasis is the candle light in the foreground. The foreground character should mostly be in silhouette, and you'd be able to see some parts of the form being illuminated underneath. I also adjusted the lighting a bit on the focal character to make the strongest source of light to be from the candle light underneath, and then I weakened the light coming from the candles behind him. As a general rule of thumb of lighting (which of course can be broken in certain circumstances), your light sources that illuminate your subjects will be at different intensities. There are definitely some drawing concepts that should be addressed in your painting, namely perspective. The responsible thing would be for me to tell you to learn perspective. However, most people happen to find that subject matter to be boring. Since you're so young I think it might be more important to have fun by learning what you want to learn and painting what you want to paint, for the time being. BUT, if you do want art school to be in your foreseeable future, it might be worth investing some time into the more boring fundamentals to get better, which possibly opens doors for you to get scholarships in the future...just something to consider haha. Hope this helps!

Hi Kat. Cute drawing! I think the light on the railing is part of the issue. The view is drawn to the middle bottom edge bedause of the light. I think the shoulder of the person holding the candle would throw a shadow on this part so you can go a lot darker there. The candle gives just a little amount of light and I think you can go way darker in the background too so that the pictues are just slightly visible. Than you can push the lights and darks on the blonde guy too. I attached you a reference picture. Hope this helps.

Excuse my English grammar. For composition, my advice is to check your perspective precisely. The camera angle is lower than the candles; why the upper surfaces of the candleholders are still visible? Also, you don't always want to wrap every object with monotonous lines, even with hairs. Your lines are not very defined and lack variety(thick and thin). Try to draw with your shoulders more to have clean and straight lines. For the brightness of the color, try to switch the whole thing to grayscale (if your painting digitally) and darken it, then subtly highlight it up. If the construction of the painting is not strong, your painting will most likely look distorted and unattractive, even with fine coloring skills. It's best for beginners to start with easy paintings and copy other's works instead of guessing as you draw. I hope this helps.