[yakuza]

I've been working on this for a few weeks on and off. It obviously uses photo reference but I'm not too sure about how its working with the background. I'm planning on modifying the figure a bit but I want to make sure the values and perspective are correct. Any tips, paintovers are very welcome.
Thanks

[Nennad]

The play of shades and light on character is very dramatic, while background is very mild and too light in color. I would use much darker color and contrast for background, to justify such drastic play of lights on the character.

Also, you need to decide will you go into details for background, or perhaps simplify it a bit to get more attention on character.

There is also a problem of some pieces of picture look too 3d and some too flat (head-hair, chair looking pretty simple and flat).

Beware of the pink color in combination with green - play a little more with that maybe. Also you probably need to work on the dark shades of the model, they look a bit isolated (i mean on her wear mainly).

Some things that looks justified on photo reference are not looking well on hand made paintings, that is the way the things are

[Garret_AJ]

Hey, I'm sorry but the perspective here is all wrong. I'm going to give you my best advice and you're not going to like it.

You need to start over. Take this piece as a learning experience and use it as a flagship to identify your problem areas. Let me lay out the things you need to focus on for the next go around so you don't keep hitting your head against the wall.

First, stick to one style. You have the figure that is rendered by you and the rest that is from photos. When you have detail dense backgrounds under detail light objects, it will always look unnatural and cut/paste.

The figure has some good sections in it, but there are many anatomy issues. You should look up some books to help with that ("Figure Drawing for all it's Worth" is a good one).

Perspective: basically the same thing. Nothing seems to be in the same perspective, you need to do some study there before you revisit this.

Go ahead and see what you can do with this, but if you study up on this things, I promise you will look back at this and see what I mean.

No hard feelings, I really hope this helps.

[fersteger]

I agree, many times, especially before you have the confidence and ability to power through pieces and make them work, it's best to start over.

With every piece there's usually a point where changes aren't going to bring the piece to a new level. It is what it is and changing things here and there, fixing sizes or changing colors, are almost superficial and not really worth it.

It's much better to agonize over the drawing and get everything accurately laid out first, then paint, than it is to try to fix things that weren't working in the drawing.

Every piece is a learning experience and exercise and it's important to remember that, and try to use what you learned in your next piece.

I like your image and can't wait to see your next piece!

[yakuza]

I really appreciate the feedback and advice guys, don't worry about hurting my feelings. Yeah I'm going to use this practice piece, I'd been looking at Adi Granov stuff and wanted to try some of his techniques out with textures.
You can probably tell that I traced over the photo for this before rendering, for the next one I'm planning on drawing by hand then scanning. That way I can try and draw the background in at the same time and hopefully avoid the disjointed feeling between the foreground.
I'll maybe post the drawing before I start with any colours to see if you guys can keep me on the right track. I'm mostly working in a different style at the moment on a comic, check it out.
Again thanks to you all for taking the time to help me improve.