Prettyyyyy

Thank you. I love the beach and summer clothes. An excuse to go barefoot.

Woah amazing

Thank you.

this came out really nice

Your background is inspiring. It's gotten lots of compliments!

I'll just provide critique on the characters, since the BG is Michael's, unless he wants my 2 cents too, but he did a wonderful job nonetheless

The primary thing I see is that your lighting on the characters is really flat. You've got the rimlight on the left side, but by using just a fixed width line, you're missing a lot of depth on the lit side. Additionally, rim light is cast by an actual light source, so places like her left forearm wouldn't catch light on the bottom edge since the hat is in the way.

The inverse is on the dark side, where your light is totally flat in most spots. We'd have a deeper shadow under the brim of the hat (this will also give more depth to the brim making it appear wider) and on the soles of her left foot, which points completely away from the light source.
On the mother, the shading you have done on her tail looks like it's not blue enough for the scene? Subtle but worth mentioning.

On the boy, we also have similar flatness issues where he's not receiving the kind of light and shadow on him that would cast that shadow, he's almost unshaded. His right foot is also at an odd angle being totally sideways like that.

You're getting lots of stuff right though!, the pose and motion of her skirt is really nice and we get a good sense of a breeze from that, you got the cast shadow colored nicely for the ambient color and the flat color and simple shading on the boy's back is *really* good. His hair looks good too, and you created good depth between his left and right arms by fading the far arm out to blue a lil

If you'd like me to do a little painting over it to see if I could demonstrate what I'd change, i can do that too <3

I have a lot to learn!
I'm really honored you took so much time to look into the picture and will surely improve given so much information to digest.

I'm also greatly honored you took the liberty to paint over our picture I'm truly tickled pink. You must believe in my potential to take so much time. I'll take what you've said and do my best to apply it.

If you would there's a link to Micheal's original background he'd be thankful for a comment from an awesome artist like you.

Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart!

My pleasure <3

I would have to disagree about the light from the arm holding the hat because if the sky is ambient light there would still be some light. I will do it deliberately so the arm is appearing round and not flat personally. But I found this fantastic video I'm using on my next piece. I'll PM you.

Yeah, there will definitely still be some light in the not-directly-lit areas and areas that are being partially occluded, that's why you won't shade fully dark, but just the objects being near each other occlude ambient light, on top of blocking directional light which casts your conventional shadow. I don't remember how I even shaded that spot, I'll have to dig up my edit again to see how I went about it.

Do keep me posted if you need help or feedback though <3

Actually could I trouble you with a preliminary assessment and suggestions on my latest post???

Absolutely <3

C'mon, son, I know you can throw it farther!

The shade and the whole environemnt are pretty well made, IMO. I'd say the same about the water reflections and splashes too!

I'm overwhelmed by your kindness. I'll do my best to live up to expectations.

she looks to be a very good mother to Genny and by her clothes, she looks to be very good with money and live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood of her town.

In a chateau actually !

nice! 🐺🔆

I should draw it.

yes you should.