Good study on value. My recommendation would be to take note of reflected light that is missing from your last study. Check out the faint reflected light all along the side of her torso hip and legs that appear to be catching light from a nearby wall. Also note the reflected light on her right leg where light from her left leg bounces back onto it. The undersides of her breasts are also receiving bounce light from the ribcage.
Keep up the studies!
reflected light…got it! it’s very cool how there are all these elements. Missing one makes a big difference. They are all required and I can’t wait to they all come natural to me. I see now how it gets easier the more you paint. For me, a lot has to do with becoming comfortable with my tools photoshop and the wacom. I’m having an awesome time learning. I’m not cranking these out as much as I should be though. I tried to do it everyday, but…no excuse just reasons! thanks for the feedback red.
master copy. ps. a few hours into it. now i begin to get to the point where i get frightened. i’ll see what i come up with. comments and critiques please. not really sure what i’m doing here.
ref:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=199&t=349580&page=1&pp=15
Just keep going. Don’t think about the fear to screw it up or not. It’s digital so you can always go back a few stages if you don’t like the way it is going.
Take your time to work it up. Rembrandt didn’t paint this in 2hours either 
Listen to Johan here, Vicmonty. No need to rush with it. I can tell from experience that it doesn’t help, usually if I take my time to make it right the first time, I save many hours at the end because there are no mistakes to correct, even if it may seem that I was working much slower. Correcting mistakes takes time, so try not to make them, though that probably won’t happen, but the less you need to correct, the better. But then again, no one’s going to do anything to you if you do make a mistake, so just keep going without any fear 
Marko Djurdjevic talks on his DVD about this fear thing, how it keeps you from getting better results, so stop saying that you can’t do it, know that you can and paint with a smile
you guys are right. i’ll take it slow and try not to make errors. i’ll keep stepping back and when i do find errors i’ll fix them immediately.
it can all be a bit overwhelming. i look at my ref and wonder “where do i start?” we’ll see…
Thank you for commenting. I must admit that this part was fun. I’m playing with all the different colors. I noticed that the face has 3 colors. Yellow, pink and orange. This is pretty cool. I’m starting to realize how nothing is just one color. We exist in a world of colors and reflected light shows us this. I know one shouldn’t spend too much time on one part of the painting. This is all so new to me. Painting a face is a big deal for me. This turned into a bit of a portrait excerise I guess. I know I should practice with high quality photos for portrait painting, but I engaged much in what I’ve done so far. Not so much scared any more. Really having fun. Here’s the latest. On and off here. About an hour…
Looking good vic! This looks like a really nice exercise. You seem to be taking to the fleshtones nicely (I’ve been wanting to get into full color portraiture myself, I’m a bit intimidated by flesh tones but I’m working on it…)
Keep it up!
fiinished! well, I didn’t do the whole study. I got what I wanted from this one. Time to move on to something else. Comments and critques please.
I’m going back to the OFDW’s. This study is from OFDW 22. I believe the photo belongs to damien canderle
Let me know what you think…
Is this done in photoshop? And are you using a brush with lowered opacity settings? I ask because this seems similar to how I’ve been painting, and it actually makes my life more difficult. This is a very difficult subject on top of that. Good luck!
thanks for stopping by. i always enjoy seeing your sb.
yes it’s done in photoshop with a brush from zhuzhu’s set. I think i got it from deviant art. the pen pressure may be set to opacity. i’m not really sure. i’ve been painting with different settings lately.
i like painting this way because it lets me see a “sketch” of the what i’m painting if that makes sense. i can build with value if that makes sense. it’s really fun. i have’t done anything else with this painting. i got bored with it and moved on to another study. i should probably post that.
someone said that when painting digitally you shouldn’t paint mess with opacity settings. the color should just lay down solidly. he compared it to painting with actual paint. when you lay a red down it’s red, not a lighter red or the value you get when painting with opacity setting. I don’t know about that. it offers something for me.
I’m still learning about painting so i can’t say one way or the other. i know you can mess with opacity settings to help with rendering or you can just use the color picker and manually select all the different shades. i may be wrong, but i’m learning.
New image here. How’s my progress going so far? What can I change to improve this image? It’s taking a long long time, but it’s still fun. I’m very slow…
I see that i may have to work on the proportions of the arms.
I should smooth out his right arm to get rid of that outline that seperates his shoulder from the rest of his arm. It’s also seperating the bicep and tricep. I know they should be seperated, but how do I make it no so much of a dark outline?
I changed his pose. Now I don’t have any arms to use as ref. Comments and critiques will be great!
You can always use a mirror
Also, you shouldn’t be spending a lot of time rendering, when you’re not certain of the pose yet.
Do some quick sketches, say a dozen, pick the best pose and then do 5 or 6 different quick light thumbs, in which you let the light source have a different position. Pick the best one of those 6 thumbs and stick to it. Then use a mirror and simulate the lighting conditions as you want them in your painting.
Have fun!
Do you remember the first time you had something “click” while you were painting? I can’t really explain it, but it happened while I was rendering. All that reading I have been doing about painting seemed to make sense and was real to me.
It was a great feeling and I felt another barrier come down. I think that’s why I jumped ahead without fully nailing a pose. 12 thumbnails, then 6 with light and pick one. got it!
Thanks for always visiting my SB. I really appreciate you sharing your knowlegde with me.
No worries mate, I learn just as much as you do by doing this (remembering myself of what to do) 
