I am simply going to adress the color and composition of this piece, as everything else is very good.

The level of detail for this painting is increadibly high, and even though that may be a good thing if one is to go with that kind of a painting, but in this case it is not. The reason is; composition. Though you have clear understanding of how shading works on a human being, the composition of this piece is very poor. Everything has contrast, so it's hard to focus on the actual character itself, it's details get lost with the amount of other details in the picture.

I suggest watching Disney's Little Mermaid to get some good shots of how to fill a painting with a high level of detail, while not losing focus on the main character.

If there is a lot of detail, which clearly in this painting there is, the details have to flow in a way to make the viewer's eyes center on the main object.

One way of achieving this is having the fish swim in such a way that it would draw the person's view to the main character, taking a school of fish and turning into a flowing spiral towards the center of the page, for example.

Pretty much if the main focus of attention isn't grabbed in the first 5 seconds of looking at this picture it is poorly composited.

Color:

Now the color is where it get's a bit awkward as well. The contrast of gold to blue, though strong and powerful, is too not used enough, and in fact, get's blotched out by the golden fish swimming near the top of it's tail (where the tail and body meet). The only thing that stands out in this fashion is the head, and that is because there is a tuff of golden hair with a blue-ish headgear. The rest of the contrast is so minimal, that the rest of the picture just steals it.

The use of purple in the fins, though a nice idea, does not help your picture in anyway, it blends the ocean to the character way too much and darkens it, making it harder for me to focus on the character as a whole. A change of fins to a more orange/red tint., or a bright green/yellow tint would have helped a lot because it would have made the attention focus more on the character as a whole.

The cape on the right really bothers me in many ways because it is so huge, and destroys the balance of the picture as a whole. It's too much, it also blotches out the hand of the character, which I think would benefit quite a lot from being on it's own surrounded by water. It would give direction, a sense of movement to the character, a flowing balance if you will.




In Conclusion, though I can see the amount of effort, and detail put into this piece of work, it is, as you said, over-kill. Removing some fish, or making the fish swim in a fashion which would make the eyes flow towards the main character, would do it a lot of justice.

I think a good few hours of researching good composition, and color scheme would help you out in the future, and seriously consider watching Disney's Little Mermaid. Say what you will about Disney, but they don't mess around when it comes to great composition, and color schemes. At least back in the day.

The Rating on the right I give strictly for the color and composition, not the over-all deviation.

I sense a lot of talent in you, and I hope you develop it further.

Hi,

The first thing I noticed when this picture loaded is that you obviously put tons of effort into it. It shows! You should be proud.

The image is full of thoughtful details that imply the figure comes from a specific culture. That's always a nice touch, because it suggests backstory where there may not be one.

COLOR
Your use of textures adds grit to an image that may have been better off without it (depending on how your rendering stands on its own). Cool colors were a safe choice for this picture, but many of the colors are so similar that it flattens the image. For instance, the mermaid's tail, shirt, scarf, headdress, glove, much of her body art, and the background water are all roughly the same color. Varying the hues would not just improve the sense of depth, but allow the viewer to distinguish between parts of the image more easily.

This may be less consequential depending on what 'style' you prefer, but light bounces. The way light bounces off of objects and into your eyes is how you perceive color. Because light bounces, the color of one thing is often reflected onto the color of another thing. Your character's skin and hair do not reflect the environment at all, which may contribute to the ' posed photograph' effect - something I'll mention again later.

The way you rendered the scales on her tail is very pleasing. I like it a lot!

COMPOSITION
There is just too much going on in this picture. The details are very nice in theory, but adding too many details makes it more difficult for the viewer to notice them all. Things begin to get lost.

A good example is the purple fins along the mermaid's tail. There is so much going on in this image that my eye did not initially tell my brain what these were. When I first loaded the image, my brain didn't even notice that they were there. The same also follows for the rocks in the foreground, the rocks in the background, the white... thing (cloth?) behind the figure (I still don't know what that is).

The way the background rocks and the figure are centered in the image make it feel like the character is situated in front of a backdrop. The aforementioned lack of depth adds to this effect. Putting the character in a position that is more likely to occur naturally relative to the camera can help you avoid this ' posed photograph' effect.

All of the fish in the foreground are at exactly the same distance from the camera. Perhaps moving one of the schools closer to the camera would have helped add depth.

THE FIGURE
This may be because of all the androgynous boy-girl anime characters that I am exposed to as a denizen of this fair website, but the gender of this character was not immediately obvious. Given the style you are working in, you could have told me that this character was male, and I would not have been surprised at all! Perhaps it's because the pose makes her appear to have broader shoulders than she really does, or the natural, unexaggerated hip-to-waist ratio. I am not suggesting that you should feminize your character; far from it, if that is how she looks - that is how she looks. I just want to make you aware that other people may wonder if she is a boy or a girl, too.

The large scarf the character wears is distracting, and not convincingly drawn. It looks like an architectural or graphic element, not like a garment flowing in water. In the future, consider making folds less regular and symmetrical.

This is a lovely picture, and I appreciate the opportunity to help. Thank you!