Dragon-ish painting I've been working on

Leinad

I don't paint much, but it's an area I would love to get better at. Here is a painting I've been working on (still WIP). I've learned a lot from texturing 3D assets in the past few months and wanted to try my hands at polishing an old painting attempt.

The goal is to have something that clearly demonstrates an ability to paint at an advanced level so that I can put it on my portfolio.

Like always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

Neox

okay in retrospect after writing this, it may sound harsh but i'm just counting whats wrong with this piece. no offense but you have still quite some way to go and i am not a 2d artist, some painters might give you better tips

hm it is definitely far from portfolio quality. Depends on what you want to do with the portfolio, its more like a kids book illustration (and not a good one) not like conceptart you would see in games.

So where to start, the perspective is off like really really off, the horizon doesn't really work

he has 2 different feet, one of them beeng drawn in front of the foreground grass

Your values are all over the place, making the whole piece entirely flat. The belly has the same value as the mountains behind it, the grass the same as well, the skin the same as the sky. Use your values to create depth. Even his back spikes blend perfectly into the background rocks (or mountains, hard to say)

while he stands somewhat perspectively the whole thing is drawn flat, it has 2 different types of feet and two different types of hands. The outlines you kept have no rythm, they seem tandomly thinner and thicker. Why keep them anyways if you want to show how good you can paint?

The composition is just bad, that dinosaur in the middle of the frame, his tail almost touching the frame and the buig almost falling out of the image. Really you should rearrange it

There is no real light condition in your image its all mostly local light to render out shapes, but no overall light direction. Maybe it would help if you roughly block your stuff in 3d and render it out to get a better idea.

Leinad

Thank you so much for the feedback Neox, it's exactly what I needed. I'll be working on it with all of the feedback you've given! I really appreciate it. It's quite late where I am so I am about to go pass out and sleep so forgive any typos you may find in what I am writing.

The next update will look much different, again I really appreciate you taking the time to give me such detailed feedback! Made my night! (technically morning =P)