#Taking this piece to a competition and wish to hear ways to improve the piece
placid slate
nimble vale
I can't offer much tbh. But just wanted to mention that this is such a beautiful piece and well painted . Love all the textures and life you breathed into it. 
wish you the best of luck
placid slate
Thank you very much!
sly rapids
Same as Dork, I can’t offer much in the way of improvement or constructive critique. This is just a beautiful piece. Period.
cyan grove
Can you just like, calm down. You're making everyone look bad. If I had to nitpick, in my novice opinion, the tattoo(?) on the hand doesn't quite read as the same quality as the rest of piece.
This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen though and if it doesn't win then idk.
zinc yarrow
One thing i can see here is that id add some more color to the hand, also maybe some occlusion shadows between the fingers
other than that it seems pretty darn strong, are those all freehand?
versed tulip
It's great. I think the duck could use some work though, assuming it's supposed to be a mallard duck. They have a sheen of blue in their heads, that would be nice if you could pull it off. I'm also no duck-ologist, but male mallards with the green heads also have a somewhat distinct feather pattern. Something to think over - or maybe it's not a Mallard and I'm over thinking this.
placid slate
Can you just like, calm down. You're making everyone look bad. If I had to nitpi...
The tatoo is based on a real one (the original looks bad as well, historical thing really). But as no one seems to read that, it's good advice and I'll return to the tatoo.
placid slate
One thing i can see here is that id add some more color to the hand, also maybe ...
I'll do that as well. Hand are somewhat of a weak spot for me. And yes, it's all free hand and texture, surfaces came flat.
placid slate
It's great. I think the duck could use some work though, assuming it's supposed...
Excellent idea!
cyan grove
I think it reads well as like a "scratchy" type tattoo, but like the perspective isn't quite right to me, the red dots are her knuckles right? blue circle i think these could be touched a bit to look less like brush strokes. again newbie nitpicking to extreme
placid slate
I came here for nitpicks, good advice!
civic forum
Hi Pinky! As I've commented earlier, this is really a superbe piece and I hope I someday paint something as good. Or kick myself hard and long enough in the butt to try. 😂 Anyway, back to what you're asking for: nitpicks...
The main thing that has me wondering for improvements is very secondary details about light effects.
- The grandma's chin is very red (especially a spot to her left), but in comparison tpo the rest of her face and the skin tones here, she doesn't get as much red in the traditional areas where blood would be plentiful (nose, a small area on the cheeks), and since she's go these older skin color patches here and there, it feels weird to me.
The other thing that goes with it, looking at that red spot on the left of her chin facing the direction where the grandpa is looking, is that I feel like this should (could?) be also a skin highlight area (like her nose got a rather striking highlight and it's almost the same exposure?) - The wool "hood" (whatever be the right English word for bonnet) has me wondering about the overall lighting because the wool doesn't have strong reflection points (like hair would, even if it is a little less). Is it because it's supposed to be a little dirty? The light is too diffused? I don't know.
- Since you're going "advanced ++" land, I have to talk about interference colors in the hair and beard. The grandpa's beard close to the grandma's face should get sliiiightly rosey colored by indirect reflections, I think? and I feel like grandma's hair close to her hood should get some look-alike reflections (brown/green) from the hood itself.
- Nitpick: grandpa's left shirt sleeve end on his wrist could have darker shadows away from the light (making the folds more contrasted).
- Composition question: the way the scene is built doesn't drag my eye to a particular place. I assume it's a conscious choice but I wanted to call it out to exchange about it, because trying to focus the viewer's attention somewhere could build a special mood. Right now, the biggest focus is the duck (because its head bears the one most saturated color of the whole piece). Which means the love between grandpa and grandma comes in as a secondary thing (even though I have a feeling it was the most important thing for you here?) Not what you did, but in comparison if there had been a slightly more focused lighting on the couple's heads (bringing the rest more into shadows, lower values), and the duck being a little more desaturated, then I think it would have felt "more intimate". Not sure what else should be involved for that but that's my guess. Right now the values for the faces, the hands, the duck's head are all very similar (compared to that theoretical suggestion of focused light.) EDIT: greyscale version of the first shot to read the levels:
I'm not going to say it enough, but I really love love the fabric's patterns, and I find the overall coherence of the style (lots of touches, carefully chosen desaturated tones, that flower pattern on her robe) really really impressive.
after effect photo edition to try to show it
