I have absolutely zero confidence in my skills or it is more like I have no idea where my skilllevel lies. If it's alright, please pinpoint any specifics, because anatomy is too vast to say "you need to work on anatomy."

Hey! Now, I want to preface by saying that I am not an expert at anything and all of this is purely my opinion. But there was one thing in particular that stood out to me. I made a quick rough edit to give an example, but I noticed that the facial features were getting lost in the skin as well as the skin shadows in general were too light compared to the shadows on everything else.


I think darkening the shadows adds more depth and form to her face and body; you could even go darker than I did honestly; I just wanted to give a quick example of what I meant. Another thing that I forgot to do that you could include: You have this cool teal light in her hand and it would be awesome to maybe add more teal highlights to emphasize the lighting it's giving off. Other than that, I'm still learning anatomy myself so I can't be of much help on that front. I tried to underline a skeleton underneath your drawing and the only thing that stood out to my untrained eye was the head/face. I'm unsure if this was the intended pose, but it looks like her face is down-turned like this (but with eyes looking forward):


If this is important to the character, please ignore this, but I'd maybe suggest a face/head pose that's less inward-facing. My reasoning: her chin silhouette gets lost in her chin (though the shadows do help to separate the two) and it gives off a more shy/demure vibe while the rest of her body is in a very confident pose.

But! With all of that said! I believe your skill-set is currently very strong. As far as the body and pose: beautiful! Like I said, it's a very confident pose and gives a good sense of the character. I'd the pose and your painting skills are the strength of this piece; both are conveyed beautifully.

Hi! Here's my paintover:

Spoiler: show

I hope my sketch helps explain what you could try doing with the anatomy and gesture- the way her hips and shoulders are aligned looks unnatural. Also, if someone's holding something in their hand, that will move the angle of the shoulder down as well. The way that you have her standing, especially in heels, looks kind of unstable too. Also watch out for tangents, her sword handle intersects with the edge of her skirt, and her sleeve goes right to the edge of the hilt part. Pick one to be overlapping the other, it'll create more depth and also make it less distracting.

In terms of colour and lighting, i think you need to consider your shadows more. The ones on her clothes are very dark, indicating that the light is very focused and/or not very bright, but the shadows on her face and body are barely there? Also if there's a reflective surface like the sword right next to a light, there should be a sharper highlight on it. I didn't have time to go in and paint over the face and hands in detail, but also remember that skin will show more of a red/pink colour at the edge where the light meets the shadow. There's a lot of opportunities to put more colour in the cheeks and nose and fingers, if you don't take them it can look kind of lifeless or flat.

Overall, try to use harder brushes when painting! I know everyone will tell you this, and it might look really bad when you start, but it'll help you learn.

This one I would recommend lessening the intensity of lighting in the foreground, the colors feel overexposed on the form, and causing some of the facial features to look flat. Though If your obsessed with bright colors, I'd recommend tossing the brighter colors in the background in this piece, it'll help boost the contrast after you drop the lighting intensity in the foreground.

the flames look like tentacles on your cyan colored fireball or whatever, unless it's a bright squid I would smooth down that thing a lot,

Thank you very much for the feedback. I have tried your points with this revision. I even went all out and tried to put the sword tip more into perspective to the viewer. The covergence of the lines of the object was the hardest part. I also ramped up the shadows and the contrast to the background and shifted her standing leg more to the left. I also shadowed the nose more, moved the head more to the right and the shoulder downwards. I'm not entirely happy with the sword because of the crazy overlap, but before i start breaking anything really hard, call this one done for now. Again, thank you. Originally painted in Photoshop, edited now with Clip Studio Paint