Hi Blaise, I would like to ask more about the specific goal. Is there going to be a landscape background, is there going to be more creatures, or are there going to be structures? Are we going for a cheery image with a happy sunlit vibe or something that's more dark and dreary or dilapidated etc.? I'd like to give good feedback. I feel I could give better feedback if I knew what is the part you want to work on and are concerned about moving forward on. The moss animals look really awesome though and I can see you are very familiar with rendering 3d forms and know anatomy fairly well.

the Images look great, I can tell you’ve got really solid drawing skills when it comes to foundation like the limbs as cylinders and the changing planes of the face. When looking at whether something should have lots of black or only a little black it really depends on the type of lighting being used in the scene. You are on the right track and it’s a really good way to be thinking about value in an image. Often pro artists (like Anthony Jones) will start with painting in the values of the painting in a more graphic manner. This means painting everything as solid blocks of greys whites and blacks with no variation in each block of value. Then after they know what the local value is, they look at it from a distance or make it smaller to see if they can still tell what it is. After that they apply highlights and softer gradual gradations to show light hit the different planes of the surfaces of the subject drawn. So in general true black is only used when there is a complete absence of light like in a shadow. And shadows in the light tend to be a darker value then the lightest light on the light side, but the shadow on the light side tends to be lighter then the lightest value of the shadow side. For example if we have a black shirt, the part of the shirt in shadow would be the blackest black. But the part of the black shirt in light would be more of a really dark grey. Anthony Jones only has one video here on proko but he has more on his site robotpencil and here is a link for his lesson on value which was very helpful for me. https://robotpencil.gumroad.com/l/RjyGk all in all though I can tell you’ve been practicing a lot and the drawings look really good and I can tell over time your values have continued to improve. And your thinking on the right track so keep exploring more about value. Sorry for the long post and I hope this helps.

Hi Rolland, The hair looks stunning I can tell you spent a lot of time on it, and the values are shaping up really nicely. Another thing that might help is that the lips from corner to corner would be a bit wider. When we smile the corners of our mouths are pulled outward towards the bottom of the ears and up towards the eyes because of the different muscles and this can pull the corners almost as far as the outer corner of the eye. As far as the eyes and nose and overall head shape they look really good and solid. I might also do a mini study of the mouth using the bloated Tuna can that stan mentions in his portrait video on lips. :) But overall It looks really good.

Hi James, one way for studying that has helped me is to break down a drawing even further. I ask myself first what do I like about the work I’ve done and what do I want to improve. I then do a study of the part I didn’t do as well as I would have liked. This study usually includes looking for or making additional reference. Then I look at many different types of tutorials on the subject from many different artists, and then I draw that particular thing again from the same angle and then multiple different angles. Then at the end I ask myself do I understand why the first one didn’t turn out right and do I know how to fix it? If I do know then I move on to the next thing. If not I take a break and then try it again the next day. Also some times if I have a hard time seeing issues in my work I’ll take a picture of it and mirror it so it’s flipped horizontally the other way. This makes the image look new to the brain and it makes mistakes easier to spot if I’ve been working on something so long that I can’t tell any more what’s right and wrong. I am sorry this is long and I hope it helps.

The rendering looks great. The first question is what kind of lighting is intended? Is the lighting intended to be very contrasted or is the light supposed to be more diffuse. If you have a reference image with an example of the kind of lighting that is desired it would help us to understand the specific goal. Additionally, Is the lighting coming from the upper right of the subject from our view? If so, It could make it even better to add a cast shadow from the upper lip, similar to the image attached. Here is a link to this head lighting tool on art station I used for this image. (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GX3Ax1) Knowing the difference also between form shadows, cast shadows, ambient occlusion, bounce light etc. can also help a lot and I know Marco Bucci has a great video on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcCJ2CU-bFw&t=1s) And I know he has a couple of courses here on Proko as well.