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Aehdncl
ooh! so there's a lot to love about your art, and plenty of examples means a lot to talk about. let's see...
so i don't consider myself an expert on character design, but i think my biggest thoughts are that you could do
more with the designs you've got here. like, taking the gijinka... it's a fine design, certainly! it's nicely rendered, and i like how you've worked in aspects of the dragon. but it doesn't really have much... personality to it? to me it doesn't convey anything about the dragon's character other than 'vaguely smug', it doesn't tell me anything about their daily activities (has telescope -> astronomer? but that getup seems awful cold to be hanging around outside at night in...) or really anything like that. and there's nothing that stands out to me as particularly fun or memorable about it honestly. i hope this doesn't seem too harsh, haha! because from a technical artistic standpoint it's very well put-together, but i think you could have made bolder choices for the outfit, the shape language, etc. a design doesn't just need to stand on its aesthetic merits, it needs to communicate something about the character to the audience if it needs to be effective.
i like the other design a lot (yugioh..?) - you've picked up on the shared design elements of the other characters and worked them into your own style really well, so it definitely fits in. but again, it doesn't really tell me much about the OC? with the characters in the screenshot, i've never seen the show but i can immediately guess at what each of their personalities are like, because they lean on established tropes, shorthand and symbols (the poses help with this as well). with your design, i'm getting... well, purple is often associated with royalty, so an aristocrat of some sort? but other than that, it's not telling me much about the character. overall i'd say... don't be afraid of going through multiple revisions in a design, and think a little bit more about why you're choosing certain elements, starting with the basic building blocks and structural shapes of your design. for example, the imp gijinka has a lot of rectangular shapes between the hair, the flat shoulders, and the cape - can you incorporate those elsewhere in the design? what does that tell you about the character, and how can you expand on that?
on to the paintings - i think you definitely have a lot of talent for painting! i'd say stick at it, but i definitely get how time-consuming it can be, haha.
so, immediately, what you said to me about values is jumping out at me. in both of your images, the value ranges are pretty compressed. one of the most helpful tips i learned for composing values is to restrict your values within an area - say a certain colour, or an area of shadow - and have larger value jumps between areas. you're right in that subtle value shifts can inform a lot about a piece, but when the dark purple skin and the purple feathers and the frill of the coat and the arm and the cards all operate within a single value range, that can kind of get lost. i'd say keep your value ranges tight within certain areas, because it looks like you've got a good handle on how to use those effectively, but don't be afraid of bumping the values up or down in other areas of the picture! for example, in the study, the sky to me 'feels' like it should be a lot brighter. in environments you could use one set of bright values for the sky, for example, and another set of values for the land.
this is a really neat twitter thread i stumbled upon a few days ago talking about compression of values to sell separation of light and shadow regions.
the other big thing about the painting that's coming to mind for me is that i wish you'd committed to the lighting a bit more. i love the composition and the pose, it really draws the eye, and judging by the shadows on the table and the hat it
looks like you were going for a back-lit setup - but then there seems to be another, secondary light source illuminating the front of the dragon, particularly the face and neck. don't be afraid to committing to big, bold shadows! they can add so much drama and atmosphere to a piece. if you don't use thumbnailing before you start a bigger picture like this, it can be really helpful in blocking out your shadows and values. thumbnail studies are really useful imo as well, to just get a quick handle on the lighting of a scene or an object from a photograph.
whew, this got kinda long. i really like your art, i think you've got a lot of talent - and obviously, it gave me a lot to talk about, haha! i think the biggest thing i'd suggest is being more deliberate about the choices you're making - outfit and setting design, shape language, distribution of light and colour. you've definitely got all the pieces there, i think you just need to start being a bit more conscious about how you use them, and experimenting a bit more! regarding your laptop screen, it can definitely be helpful to have a colour-corrected monitor, but unless you're making stuff to be printed it actually isn't that much of an issue. most monitors are generally pretty ok, and your eye automatically adjusts to the colour biases of the monitor anyway - so overall, the piece shouldn't look too different.
hope this helps!
