Great work, i really likes how much you pushed the lightning contrast. You have also sacrificed some of the local values on the fish for the sake of better composition. This shows me that you are already thinking about the compositional values , instead of just making it as real as possible. For the feedback, i am observing that you have really tried to use the same contrast all throughout the artwork. Also the tail of the mermaid looks like as if it is sort of "Pushed in" in the artwork. Naturally, for a twisted organic form, it really should not be in such a stretch untill its a noodle. So, there are two the things i would suggest for correction . First , always build up bending forms by combining simpler forms (at least untill it becomes intuitive) . Second, when doing a artwork , always try out multiple types of composition before settling on one and finishing it. This applies for deciding not only the basic composition of the scene, but also its value composition. For a 2 your artwork, about 15 minutes of very rough composition exploration should be about enough. As a tip for speed, you can actually do composition exploration without form, without colour, just Plane black and white values on a simple gesture drawing with cross contours as i did here should be enough

Hello artist of mermaid behind kelp, I love the blue elements of light the most it flares it up. If you are struggling with lighting, a simple method I have used is: flat colors, shadows, highlights and effects. (Credit to Kesh art for this formula.) Besides that the one thing I see in this illustration that I myself struggle with is clutter. Two options I see from the many you could do, one is to make your mermaid smaller or spread the fish out. Two if you want to keep that size, make your mermaid not fit the illustration to show that you are close up, e.g the middle of her tail swooshes offscreen. When there is clutter even on the most magnificent artwork it can be daunting and confusing to look at, like my desk (haha). I honestly love the story I see from this work, the exuberant colors, and the emotions it conveys. Hope that helps. Don't stop believing, hold onto that feeling! -Samuel

@fosco

Paintover

Hey! Great start! I really like how this illustration is shaping up Just a few suggestions that could push it further: Try making the mermaid a bit smaller. Leaving some breathing room around the edges of the canvas helps the composition feel more balanced. Right now, she’s a bit too close to the borders. Shrinking her slightly would also create better interaction space with the fish on the right, making that relationship feel more natural. It feels like she wants to eat that fish haha. On the lighting side, you’ve got two sources going on: a natural light from above and another from below. You can take advantage of that by darkening the overall body a bit, then: letting the top planes catch more of the upper light and defining the lower areas with that purple light This creates a really nice contrast and adds more dimensionality. It also helps separate your planes more clearly: background (the sea) midground (the mermaid) foreground (the algae) Hope this helps!