[WIP] Hand-painted Witch Princess | Feedback needed

SiraGem

Hi! I'm new to polycount and this is my first post...~ (side note... I am amazed at how good everyone is. Hope I'll learn a lot from you all)
I recently started working on my portfolio after having graduated and my first non-school project is a 3d character fanart of Witch Princess from Harvest Moon DS, for instance these are the references:

I am trying to do it in a stylized/handpainted style, which is the style I would like to work in in the future, so I'll try to make all my next portfolio pieces in that style too to get a more specific and less messy portfolio.
I am most excited about the handpainting part, but I'm not there yet, so my question for now is: I am almost done with the sculpting -only making the hands, merging the eyelids to the face and some minor details left-, my next step will be retopology, so, what do you guys think I should improve and fix before I start retopo?

I just noticed that maybe the proportions don't look too right (even though they were originally made on purpose and looked fine on the blockout) because the face style doesn't fit..? The head looks a bit big or something. I'm not sure.
I know there will be a lot of things that don't look right but I also know I can just keep improving when I do more characters after this. I'm just trying to get finished with this one (it's been on hold for 4 months... :S) so I simply want some feedback on things I can *realistically* change now, before retopo.
Your help is very much appreciated : )
Idk how these forums work but I guess I'll keep updating this thread as I work more on this model and need more feedback.
Thanks!

zetheros

IMO you have enough to work with, and you can go retopo now

Fabi_G

Hi! I think the character looks a bit doll like. I would recommend looking for references for the style and the quality (for example create a character that fits into game xy, maybe there is even a style guide available), or do you already have references? Then it would help to include them here to show what the target is. If creating hand-painted characters is the goal, a high-poly is not mandatory - might reduce the workload and free up time for painting. 

If you want to go on with the model as is, I think in particular the hands need to be fleshed out and the knees some smoothing out.

Good luck!

SiraGem

Thanks for your comments! I actually don't have a specific reference for the style (for example, a specific game), I just gathered different stylized and handpainted images to have as a reference and kinda created my own style. Maybe it could be better for my future portfolio projects to have a set style. 
I have finished the retopology, so I wanted to come back and ask what could be improved (be it now or for future projects).
I'm kinda satisfied with how the base body and clothes turned out - the polygons are pretty square and tidy since a lot of the shapes are cylinders -, but the cape and especially the hair was a chaos. I don't know how "wavy" stylized or handpainted hair is usually modelled, but for me retopo'ing it was pretty hard and the result looks a bit weird because there's a lot of change in "resolution" ¿?, a lot of 3-turns-into-1 moments all around the hair, and I don't know if this is normal in professional models (I doubt it lol). Maybe I could've cared less about the waviness on the model(volumes) and use less polys overall, since the waves will be painted on anyways?

Also wanted to ask about triangles! I've always been "scared" of them because in school my teacher always told us they were bad, and it's only now that I've been getting more comfortable with using them on some necessary places. In this model particularly, I've used them a lot more than I would've ever thought, for stuff like ends on the hair, the knees, the hood, the hands... I want to know how often triangles are used in professional models and if the way I used them is correct, or if I could use either less or more.