OH THANK YOU :B

Oh my! I do rather like this! You have a great use of chiaroscuro going on here and the range of values seems pretty legit and shapely. Be sure to add some raw details if you have any- leave no detail unnoticed. Like if you have lines or pored in your skin, noting those will breath a real life into your image when included. :)

Another thing you need to add is a not-so-second light source. Even in such intense lighting, light will bouce and put a shoft light on the other side of the face. If you are photo-reffing you should probably be able to see it.

ex scribble over- http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h.....2006/steel.jpg

Anyways- this is fab and son I am proud

THANKS DAD!! Mwah mwah <3
The scribble is much appreciated!

I plan on going a lot further with this, and good lord it's going to take forever. Hopefully it'll be able to impress the right people.

Wow it's really nice, so it's hard to find things to critique.
sdfkjasfdhkasfsfd
DAMN YOU STEELY.

erghh.

Okay well

hurk it's just too good.

Your contrast and use of value are great so far! You might wanna push the darks and lights a bit more depending on the end feel you want of this.
The thing that I think would benefit this the most would be for you to pay a bit more attention to the way you define the form with brush strokes, particularly on the forehead area towards the center of it. I'm detecting a lot of little places of different brush strokes and value, looks like it I touched it, it would be lumpy. Try unifying your brush strokes and make them bigger to convey smooth areas and define planes.

Hope this helps and that it's not all gibberish to you! I'd love to see this finished! :>

Oh yes thank you! <3
I really appreciate your advice, it is quite helpful! I was noticing the same thing, but it's okay right now since I'm mostly playing around at this point.

I know I have a lot more to do to this, but I'm glad that you're liking it so far!

Nicely done. I think you look scarier than you normally do, though

I was trying to look intense!

YESSSS this is crazy improvement, mang omg
I think the only advice I could think of is to develop the background a bit more and to shade the eyes
It helps to throw random shades or shapes in the background as you work cuz 1. you get more stuff done at the same time 2. it helps tie your work together and 3. keeps the piece from getting too dark if you stick shadows in the background (but that's only if you're gunning for that style, I personally LOVEE heavy shading so I like to make the figure as dark as possible haha)
I think the face itself is AMAZING~ you've made your eyes look sunken into your face WHICH IS GOOD because naturally all humans' eyes are deeper into their face than their other features~
I might add a few lighter bits of shading on the hair, just so the two bits of hair and head match together, and maybe to add a small amount of grey shade on the top part of the eye to show the lid's shadow + roundness of the eye

But either way this is lovely, steelychansu. :333 Your digital painting skills have come a long way :3

Ach viel dank! So many compliments! *v*
I haven't really touched the background at this point as I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing with it, I want to keep it as observational as I can right now. I'm also holding off on the eyes at the moment, in this progress pic I just slapped them down sort of as a place filler. xD

But thank you thank you thank you! <3