CGAN April 2015 Challenge - Me, Myself, and I

microscopi, probably a little late for major changes, but I would have lit the side of the face with the lightsaber in front of it and placed the other side in shadow maybe with a bit of rim lighting. At the moment it looks a little like the lightsaber is casting a shadow.

valence- Yes it didn't take much tweaking just a few shadows and highlights out of place can make a big difference.
Thomgirl- I would have loved to see what you would have come up with. Maybe you can join in on the next challenge.
micro- Yes what Banj says....for a quick fix just get rid of the blue 'glow' of the light saber just where it overlaps the face and then with a soft brush on low opacity lighten that part of the face just a bit.
schizo- The buildings add some verticality to the piece but now I don't know what to make of the diagonal objects...wings?

hobbyhorse wrote: schizo- The buildings add some verticality to the piece but now I don't know what to make of the diagonal objects...wings?

The thing behind me on the floor is just a piece of metal, the machines flying in the sky are drones. They are flying in (funny enough) something I wanted to call Wing-formations, but they can also fly separately. sweet, I know...

Valence: Thanks.I honestly just stumble through it mostly. I don't see how any of that fumbling around could be educational but I'm glad you think so.

Cherry: Thanks, Love. Love what you've added. The spider web and little ghosties are awesome!

Ed: Yours is coming along nicely! Excited to see how much farther you can push it in so little time.

Susie: Love it! Love the style but I have to agree - a little more push with the eyes would be awesome.

Hobby: Looking marvelous! I have zero critic for this piece. Love it.

Schizo: Wow. That really changed the over all composition. I'm dig'n it.

microscopi: Love the color palate you've got going in this piece.

Okey Dokey, thanks for all the advice folks - last one I think, only minor, minor tweeking left I think - unless you guys can see something I have missed.

This is very strong Susie! Nice work.

I do think that the colours are rather highly saturated though. Your style is very brush-strokey too. Imo I think there could be more blending going on to smooth things out.

I didn't see a reference image in the thread, but it would be good to see what you are drawing from. The nose is turned toward us and it's effecting the depth. But I don't know if that is true to the reference or not. However, even if it is accurate to the reference, it might be an idea to change it a little for the sake of the image as a whole.

It's up to you. These are just some observations!

Here's a paintover with the changes. See what you think.

Susie, I actually really like the (in the most positive term) messy brush strokes on your picture. I think that it fits better with the snakes and the background, if you smoothed the face over it might look out of place. To me, and this is just personal opinion... it makes your face seem more in touch with the snake scales.

I'm liking a lot of these drawings, sorry I haven't critiqued many along the way but good luck all

Susie: I like those eyes. Dom makes a good point about the nose, and one I didn't notice. Having dark areas on both sides does "turn" it a little, so lightening that left side a little more may indeed help. Yes the colours are saturated, and it would be too much for a normal human portrait but for a fantasy medias (edit: medias? Medias??? Stupid Autocomplete, I typed Medusa and I'm typing it again!) creature I think it still works. If you do want to tone it down then you could do it with colour corrections rather than repainting.
Whenever I get towards the end of a painting I like to experiment by tweaking colours in this way. My favourite ways of doing this are 1: Auto Colour Balance. I do this on a flattened version of the pic on a new layer and then fade it back with the opacity and experiment with the Colour blend mode. And 2: my other favourite tweak is the Photo Filter option, especially when used with a cool blue colour. This is great for getting rid of unwanted colour casts that I can't stop painting.
Just have a play around and see what looks best for you.

Micro: I agree with Banj's comment on the lightsabre shadow but I think just adding a bit of glow in there could still make a big difference. I do like the mood you've got there.

And after what seems like an infinite number of edits I think this post finally makes sense in English.

Thanks Dom and Aonodori,
I admit I am much more "brush strokey" than alot, its sort of how I paint traditionally as well so I guess its just my style.

Dom - Really glad you like it, and thank you for the advice, check out page 5 in the thread - that has got my pic on it. I have reworked the nose several times and, as much as I can see what you are saying, this is as close as I have got to my nose if you know what I mean .
Not sure how much more time im going to have but I will see if I can improve it.

Thanks for pointing that out Banj, fixed it I think, spent about 4 hrs working on just the arm and hand and it still looks funny to me it's pretty much where i'm going to leave it, unless I add some crazy stuff to the background.