Looks awesome! You did the face expression so well! The first thing that I think when I look at it is that I really wish there was some sort of story like a book or show with this art incorporated into it, idk what it is about it but you gave it such character and such a feel! Love it!! I really think its the nose and mouth it almost looks like an over exaggerated kinda thing, almost slight cartoon like proportions and where things are positioned in the nose and mouth that gives it such character! I'm really looking forward to more of your art and def got a follow from me!

Hey Marco! This is absolutely stunning!! You did an amazing job, that's for sure. However, there are a couple of minor details that I would adjust. This is just my own interpretation, and I don't have the reference so you can take it or simply ignore it. First, I would blur the shadow area much more. You can even blend the edge of the face with the bg so you can bring more focus to the light area and push even more the point of interest for the image. Just like you did with the hair in shadow. The ear placement seemed a bit off for me, I'm probably wrong but I don't feel like her head is so angled up so the ear goes that low. But again, I don't have the reference and you did, so I'm probably wrong. I'd also add a tiny highlight on the edge of the eye socket. It usally works pretty well, but this is just me making it up cause, again, I don't have the ref. I added a quick paintover so you could see my points more easily!! I hope this was helpful, and if not, well it was fun for me!! haha Anyways, you absolutely nailed it mate, keep up the good work!!

I just wanted to say that your work is amazing!

In my experience to get the right proportions it takes time, unless you are an expert on the field. If you want a general idea of what the subject looks like it's easier but if you want to really recreate the same exact person in the photo you REALLY need to take every small measurement and angle to do it right. To speed up the process you should start with big geometrical shapes and keep comparing all the measurement untill you get a good result, After that you can move to value while you try to check your proportions after each pass, you can see something different with the right value applied here and there. Check out some Bargue drawing guide or similar. It should be helpful! Another really important thing is to think in 3d forms and understand that you are representing a 3d object on a 2d surface. Also use a plumline as someone esle already mentioned

Hello! My name is Marco, I'm from Italy and a couple of years ago i started my art journey. I left my previous job (contability and management) to focus only on art and completely changing my life. I really love portraits and realism, that's probably my main goal but i'm still trying to learn a lot of different subjects and technique to integrate into my work. If you could give me your opinion and critiques on my stenghts and weaknesses i'll be really really happy! Thank you Proko, the amazing artists on this site and all the team behind it! You literally changed my life, i could never thank you enough.

Hey Marco! Great job on this. I couldn't do better myself! Something I might say is to take a look at the eye structure and mouth. For the eyes, it feels like they're not quite aligned, and her right eye specifically feels strange to me. Maybe flip the canvas, it might give a better idea of what I'm thinking. For the mouth, it feels like it's slightly off the center line. But those are nitpicking! This is really a wonderful study, super impressive Keep up the good work!

Beautiful!

Very well done, I like the brushes you used!

 Very nice work! The thing that stands out to me is feeling like the right side of her face, image right, her left, looks darker than I think it should be with that light. I feel like that gradation should be more subtle for those halftones, both on the cheek and on the jaw, and the temple and next to the ear. This feels especially apparent when compared to her shoulder, and how light that is, although I feel like you might be trying to insert a fade down there wanting to keep more focus on the face. But even with the head alone I feel like it is a bit darker than what I would expect. The light seems to be coming mostly from above and a tiny bit in front, and a bit to the right of the image as well. She is also leaning her head to the image left, which makes me feel that more light should be hitting those halftones. These are just my thoughts though, I could be wrong. You are doing something interesting with the texture, around the eyes and on the chin. You have some curvy partial rings that look like they were made with an eraser. I like the concept there, but I also feel that they are a bit detracting as is. I think that is because they feel like they are only in a couple places rather that something that is throughout the piece. So my eyes see it more as “what’s that” rather than just understanding it as an integral part of the expression of the piece. I don’t know how to improve that, but maybe if you interrogated more of that it into the piece it would be more clear. Like you were seeing the portrait through a kind of filter. Or maybe if you just used it at certain parts of the drawing, for instance, on more rounded surfaces, or maybe where halftones met shadow or something. Or you could leave it as is but make it a more subtle value change so it doesn’t draw attention so much. Or if you like how it is that is fine too. These are just some of the thoughts I had when looking at it. Again, really nice work. You captured her expression nicely. I like how you have blurred out some of the hair the way you did, it is a neat look. It also helps you focus on her face, while also serving to help place her into the background. It’s a neat idea, something I would never think to try at this state in my learning.

Wow cool! I love how you keep the facial features tight and the hair loose. Also the structure is well defined. Nicely done! What kind of brush did you use? The variety of texture here is very nice!

I really really like it! Amazing work

These are really good! If you wanted to push these kinds of exercises farther I have a couple of suggestions: 1) Try to change up your lighting scenarios a bit. Right now these compositions feel a little simply backlit, a mountain in shadow against a white sky, the fully shadowed figures against the white sky. It's not bad or wrong but it seems like your go-to mindset for lighting these scenes in order to get them to read. I'm attaching some black and white comps by the awesome artist Steve Wang where he's using variations of top and/or frontal lighting angles. Lighting does a lot to dictate your choices in terms of of black and white shapes, and playing with the angles can create a more visually interesting and 'layered composition. Instead of a 'flatter' black on white like you get with backlight, with these top/front/side lighting angles you get layers of white on black on white on black.. etc. I think you'll get what I mean when you look at the images. This will also make you have to consider how you depict the transition of light to shadow across form in flat hard shapes, rather that letting something simply be a silhouette. 2) After you get comfortable doing some comps with different kinds of lighting, you can always try doing some where you use 3 or 4 values. A lot of really great, 'finished' artwork you might see is often working with a very simple value composition of 3 or 4 distinct value groups. I've attached some cool studies like these by Joon Ahn. Keep up the great work! : )

I think those are all pretty good composition except for the 2nd (middle left) one. The shapes are interesting but I think it is too evenly balanced. The black and white seem to equally dominate the composition. Also there is a very even distribution of point shapes that sort of distract from the figure. I think to emphasize the figure a little bit more (and I only mean a little bit, like 15% more), you should cut back on some of the dark shapes and leave a bit more flat white space.

Is there any specific goal tied to one or more image, that you'd like people to comment on? It might be easier to suggest improvements once we know what you're striving to do a little better

Lookks really nice!

Looks amazing! Those colours work really well. The only thing I could say is that her second nostril would be possibly more visible from this angle? Looks amazing tho!:)

It's a drawing full of atmosphere... I love it! The only little thing that I can find is about the shadow of the hair on the left side of the face: I loke it, but at the same time I think that is maybe a little too dark, at least in the section near the nose. And I don't know if I like the black outline of the "window" so much, but here it's more a matter of taste. However it's "wow"