Anyone care to share any thoughts on this image I painted?

I am trying some new techniques and I am wondering how they go over with people in general. Thanks for any input, comments, CC, etc!


Original image (crappy as heck!)


Painting (reduced for size)


Some full sized crops of the painting for detail:

Question is her right eye crooked or is it my eyes?

Otherwise very nice!

looks good the only thing that stands out to me is the lightest part of b/g shade is a tad sharp in front of the girls face as in it doesn't seem to blend into the next shade as well as the other parts around the girl. over all a beautiful job

Beautiful, I like what you've down with the bottom of her skirt....
Her face kind of looks a little flat...
maybe more darks and lights

Overall nice work. I don't much like the dissolving skirt....er, maby just needs to fade more gradually....hmmm
.....and what kittie said 'bout the face. *!*

Absolutely not. I do not see any Chocolate Cake
on this image. Why would you ask such a question?

Where is her Credit Card?

No seriously..what is "CC"?

I took it to mean "constructive criticism".
(but you don't see it abbreviated much as "cc"...)

CC to me means color correction.

So far what you've done is gorgeous! I would add more of the dress. the face looks good to me, it's a matter of preference. if you did this for someone you should ask their opinion too, clients love to have input. there is a portrait painting trick from the old days, look at it in a mirror and you will see flaws easier" like placement of eyes or shape of the cheek. I know this is digital, but when you use paint on canvas or pastels things can be moved around.

There was a tutorial on that wasnt there?

I wanted to try it out but couldnt remember the link.

Anyone?

Also, very nice! I agree about maybe a little more face detail.

Ah, constructive criticism it is.
Okey dokey. Very pretty image. I can only give input from personal pref, since I only judge by personal pref when it comes to digipainting.
The white area at bottom..very 'flickrish' to me. It's a neat effect, but the paint is already an effect and I feel it's overkill.
The painting has a bit of an acrylics feel to it for me, except it appears to be on water color paper, I'd much rather see a canvas bit map under it, followed by a warped oil paint mapping.
The paint work itself, which is the primary part of the work is
really quite perfect..I'd like to see additional lighting, highlights added
to 'bring it outside' away from the camera flash lighting.
The pose, photography are perfect for this image.
I'd like to see the yellow in skirt subdued, and the colors from skirt used somehow in the backdrop of the image at her head level, the bright colors draw my eyes down away from the subject, as does that white area.
I appreciate that the subject is very attractive already with very even proportions, and near perfect symmetry, still.... others usually target in on these kinds of subjects and try to make beautiful natural proportions even better, in this image I would expect to see the ear muted (excuse the pun), but you did not do that.....I can not say this firmly enough...you did the right thing there...keep that boundary that you have in your work and never let it go.
Where it counts you have done exceptional work, and avoided the pitfalls of standard practice. All my praise for that.

Thanks everyone!

To clarify, I can't ask the client... The client is *ME* this is my 5 1/2 year old daughter. LOL! She wanted her skirt flared out like that for her photo, but I didn't like the circular feel to it. That's why I chose the white fade. However, I might just get my artistic hat on and try to blend it out into a longer, flowing skirt and lessen the white area.

Oh, and we use CC a lot on another photography board I visit to mean Creative Criticism, and just forgot that all internet lingo is not 'net wide. Sorry for any confusion!

Specifically-

Marty- I am not seeing a crooked ness to her eye. I did notice an unbalance though after you mentioned it, in the eyelashes on each eye. I will try to even that up, and that might correct what you are seeing.

Sk8R- Re: background... I added the light area afterward to try to lift her from the b/g. Seemed like she was sinking into chocolate. I will try to smooth and blend that color change more so your eye isn't so drawn to it. Thanks for commenting!

Kittie and others, on the face- I agree that her face needed something more, but I also worried about going too far with it. I will see if I can get some more dimension with highlights and shadows.

LOL Dewking... I wrote the tute... It is supposed to be posted on the tute page sometime (or so Blue is telling me...

Scion, I saved you for last, because you have the longest CC: Re: the canvas texture, that is a canvas texture that is overlaid. I am assuming that I made it too transparent, or toned it down too much. That should be an easy fix to bring up that texture more.

I was thinking of using the hue slider or color replacement to change the yellow to another shade of blue or brown, but thought that the color was an interesting pop of something different as well... I am on the fence on that still.

On the ear: Do you mean make it more in shadow? Like it is too bright? Not sure what you mean by muted.

Thanks ALL of you for looking and for your comments. This is the type of work I love to do with Photoshop, it is what I did before I came here to PSC and I am trying to constantly improve because I'd like to make a living off it someday!

I appreciate it all!

http://photoshopcontest.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=9126&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0