[Ragnarok]

Well, it's been ages since I last posted here anything.
This is going to be a present for my girlfriend's birthday:



The reference is this.
As you can see I've been quite faithful to the original. My idea was to give it some artistic feeling and in the process I lost it.
I blame it to my total lack of practice

Any comments, crits, overpaints, etc are welcome. Her birthday is this friday so I still have time to try something
_________________
"Ever forward, my darling wind." -Master Yuppa
Seigetsu

[Synnical]

I am not sure how people will be able to critique this, as it is very much a carbon copy of the original photograph.
What were you trying to achieve?

[Sampster]

I'm inclined to agree with Synnical. With the direction the image seems to be moving in the only obvious advice would seem to be to detail it so it looks more realistic.

If you want to force yourself to get something more painterly I'd recommend starting again from scratch but forcing yourself to use only 1 brush type that's meant to mimic a paint brush or pastels or something. Or you could try softening this image until it's extremely blurry and paint over that. Or if you really get strapped for time there's always the bristle/oily blender brushes that you could use in specific places to give a painterly feel to the image.

Another thought: What if you widened the canvas and put another color on the girls index finger and added some text to make it look like the girl was writing "happy birthday so-and-so" in lipstick on glass?

[Ragnarok]

Thanks for your replies.

I guess my problem is I'm not sure what I want other than give it a personal touch. Since I don't know how to do it, I ended up copying the photo.

I might try the oily/bristle approach.
I like the glass idea, but then I guess her expression doesn't really match, does it?

Again, thanks for the advise. If it doesn't work with this piece at least I'll keep it in mind for the next
_________________
"Ever forward, my darling wind." -Master Yuppa
Seigetsu

[skwid]

this looks like a paintover...