Portrait Realism - critique would be much appreciated!

[Twilight Aria]

I've been focusing on learning the basics of human faces, so that's what I've got here. Any critique on structure, color, hair (so much harder than it looks! >.< ), and so on would be greatly appreciated! I used references for her eyes and nose.

Here's my girl.

Thank you so much in advance! Please don't be afraid of offending me on any points, anything to help me improve, haha. c:

[xyloart]

The nose and mouth look good on their own but the eyes are pretty big for the face and the features are kind of far apart. Beautiful painting work though!

[QT Melon]

I think it's great you're working on human portraits. One of the first things I can say is that you need to watch your proportions on the face. The face is rather long, and the mouth is on the low side.

Proko has some great vids on learning the proportions of the head.

Although hair can be hard, people make it harder for themselves because they get mired in details instead of breaking it down into parts and leaving some parts in with the illusion of detail.

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/20...on-secret.html

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/20...tring-mop.html

Besides getting proportions down you may also want to learn how skin tones actually work. You don't go to a darker shade for skin, you may often play with slightly different colors since blood and such run through your skin.

http://navate.deviantart.com/art/SKI...rt-2-145159387

[AineCleine]

I agree that the face is pretty long, could get reduced. Mouth can nose placement are nice but considering the face can get modified that´s another case. Hair is really impressive but kinda overdetailed, it can get simplified a bit and it could save you some headaches. If you are aiming for realism skin tones work a little differently depending of the lightsource. The colors of her skin are based on any particular ethnicity?? If that´s the case you could some references. QT Melon face color tutorial is pretty insightful in getting the warmth tones.

Really amazing start thought. Good stuff.

[QT Melon]

Not sure what the above poster is saying, but the mouth and nose are too far apart from each other proportionally.

[Twilight Aria]

Thanks for the pointers, everyone. That skin tutorial is especially helpful, QT, thank you for linking me!

[Twilight Aria]

Okay, I'm just going to use this thread as my official "hey come tell me what sucks and what doesn't please!" thread.

Right. Here's a sketch of a different face. I tried to take into account all of the advice and commentary I received from the last portrait, but I'd like to get this one critiqued before I actually start painting and things get harder to change haha.

It's a little messy, if I need to clean it up a bit more before it's legible enough to comment on, please tell me!

Another girl.

[Moogle]

Nice work so far! xD I'm still practicing realism myself so I don't want to give any wrong advice, though the eyes look like they can be shrunk more, and the cheek looks like it should be a bit higher. You may have to shift the facial features around a bit if you do raise it to accommodate for the change.

[QT Melon]

This is looking a lot better than your first attempt. Some things to watch out for is the ear. It doesn't seem to be set in the head at the right angle. The other is the eye, the shape is not in line with the head.

[Twilight Aria]

Update! Made changes to placement of cheek, ear, and mouth. I'm still having trouble with the eyes, though.

Thanks so much for the criticism guys, I'm very grateful you've taken the time to help me improve!