Hi Adam, I wanna start of by saying I absolutely love the hair in this piece! I took the liberty to do a quick over-paint to high light some of the areas I think you can improve (I hope that is okay with you, if not let me know and I'll delete the attached JPEG) First thing was to reduce the colour saturation on the entire painting. This helped reduce the amount of details in the areas effect by shadow. After that I brought back some saturated colour in the areas hit directly by the light. The lighting on the mask was too symmetrical and didn't match the light you had created in the hair. I brought out the right shoulder from her hair to create more depth. I also brought the swoop of hair closer to the foreground - this did two things, 1. it got rid of the tangent it created with her cheek and 2. it created more depth. If I had to give just one advice, it would be to use less saturation over all. Highly saturation colours should be reserved for areas you want to highlight. If everything is saturation, everything feels important.

Hello Adam, what a great first post! The hair has so many cool rhythms and forms, it's wonderful to just get lost in. I particularly love the part that comes next to her cheek and casts a shadow on her chest, it really gives a sense of space and depth. In my humble opinion, here are some things you could try to bring this to the next level: First, adding a little more subtle gradation to the forms that are rolling away from us, like the chin and the ears. Right now the edges seem very sharp which can flatten out the image a bit. You've done a great job defining the form and structure within the shapes, nailing those edges will really help it to pop. The first image I've attached (by Alex Garner www.instagram.com/alexgarnerart) has a simpler, almost "flatter" style, but some subtle shifts at the edges help sell the 3d forms. Second, adding some red bounce lights from the hair. Especially with such vibrant red hair, you'll get some nice reflected lights. This will also give you another opportunity to define the edges of some forms like the neck. The second and third images I've attached (by Terry Dodson www.instagram.com/terrydodsonart and ismaelArt www.deviantart.com/ismaelart respectively) are great examples of this. Third, I can tell that you are thinking about composition and focal points from the way you framed her with the hair. Fantastic! The next step would be using your values to further reinforce that focal point. The places of highest contrast often draw our eyes. Right now the top of her abs and that bit of hair at the bottom are pulling my eyes away from her face. It might be helpful to make those lights slightly darker than the lights/highlights that are closer to the face. There are some more thoughts on this specific piece I could share if you are interested, but I think that these three are the main things I noticed that will really make your future paintings pop. Once again, awesome work! Looking forward to seeing what you create next!

Hey Adam, I enjoy the hair shapes framing the body, it gives a sense of depth. Moving the ears down a bit might help, she looks like she is looking straight ahead so the bottom of the ears might line up more with the bottom of the nose and the top of the ears line up with the eyebrow. Unless the head is tilted down in which case the ears would appear more like how you drew them. Cool composition and framing, thanks for sharing!