Hi,
Another attempt to tack ever closer to creating something semi realistic. Any pointers would be welcomed…
Alex
Sorry but i don’t have much professional criticism since I can’t draw. But she looks scary 
I think you are going for a cartoonish/anime style, but the proportion of her facial features looks wrong.
I’m going to give the same advice I give everyone. 30 second studies! Of stuff from real life that’s right there in front of you!! 
Oh, and draw wierd stuff, stuff you haven’t put in to a conceptual category, if you know what I mean.
Well, the hair shading is superb, but the eyes are bigger than they should probably be. The shape and positioning of the mouth, and the expression lines suggest that she is angry (is she?).
Pointers? I’ve got a better idea… 
There’s a goldmine of excellent tutorials at deviantart
Try the all-time favorite links for photoshop (and the other apps too -use the categories button) and you’ll find great tuts for many painting styles and techniques (soft, cel, realistic, toon, etc). They can very quickly take your work to a whole new level. Did me.
*Many of the tuts there are JPG images so you’ll need to download, load them into a viewer or editor and zoom way in to read them. There’s some very excellent tuts there -but you’ll have to browse for the best ones.
Thanks for the replies!
@ mpan3:
Yep, the eyes are too large, I’ve done that because I wanted to focus on the skin tones and shading, and a good shading will look good with any malproportioned facial feature - so easier large eyes were the order of the day!
@ I don’t know:
Sounds a good idea, an certainly goes down the road I am now on - getting the impression of things quickly then refining if I want to take it further.
@ Friday13
Cheers about the hair, but full credit goes to Linda Bergkvist (http://www.furiae.com/index.php?view=gallery -> goto tutorials / hair). That hair tute is world class (like her work).
She is definitely meant to look angry, so I succeeded there.
@LarryPhillips:
Thanks! I’ll have a browse through that. Any advice and tutorials are helpful, make sure you check out the Bergkvist ones I’ve linked above!
Thanks all. One thing I learnt from this piece was that I keep using a too bright pallette for skin. Darker tones will allow me to integrate the skin with the rest of the scene (of course if I want an oversaturated scene I also know what to do!).
Alex