Need some help and thoughts about my digital painting... any tips much appreciated?

Hi everyone,


well just recently I started learning about digital painting... and now after some nice practice, I am currently working on my very first digital painting, which is of course very simple portrait of my self :) I guess everyone's first digital painting is their portrait :))





The stage I am currently in you can see here:


http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd112/nikolavejin/umetnickodelo.jpg





As you can see I did most of the painting, but it's still not very finished so I guess now I need to work on details for a while...





Now I would really appreciate if you could look at this painting and give me some tips on what's good and what is bad on painting, and what should I do with it next... and anything you say about it would be very helpful for me since I am very willing to fix any mistakes and make this looks good.





It doesn't matter if you are professional in digital painting or not I need everyone's opinion :)


Tnx ;)Need some help and thoughts about my digital painting... any tips much appreciated?
You clearly execute the process well, but it needs more 'art'. Either by


1. making the original photo more intense, or


2. by processing the image in Photoshop prior to painting with intensified FX, or


3. in your end game with the paint.





For exampe





1. you could rather than taking a portrait as usual, have someone dumping a huge bucket of cold water over your head, so your expression is one of real shock, and the water bends the light in all these interesting ways. you could have powerful lighting from above or behind, but with a black background making the whole thing very vivid and alfred hitchcock quality lighting.





2. then once you have the photo uploaded, you can manipulate it in photoshoppe with all kinds of filters and the like. You could slightly stretch the image vertically, or have a fade to white around the edges, or reverse emboss the water contours giving it a dimentional shift, or add a silvery greenish neon kind of glow to the highlights making the whole thing kind of alien and compelling.





3. Then in the painting stage, rather than going as exact as possible, let your brush strokes further the work with smears and pallette knife cuts etc.





By the end you have your artistic hand in every aspect of the work's creation. Even the untrained eye can percieve complex processes behind your finished product, and they'll want to look at it longer to try and figure that. And as they continue to look, you have a higher chance of making a sale, and more importantly moving your viewer to feel something. Cause that's the whole point of art, isn't it?Need some help and thoughts about my digital painting... any tips much appreciated?
WOW! That's awesome!!! Not to shabby for a beginner!!! ;)





The only thing that could change a little is the hair.... the sides by ur ears look flat.. maybe a little more color transition to make it look like it is wrapping around the back of ur head....


Top of hair looks choppy where as everything else look so smooth and real... The part going through the middle of ur head (From left to right) could be more gradual...


Also... maybe add some shadow from ur hair... it looks a little separated from ur forehead and ears...





Good luck! I like it allot! :)