Mannequin's sketchbook,

[MrFrenik]

To go along with what the two above me have said about your magic girl piece, I'd like to talk about value structure and composition. Take the painting you have now, switch it to greyscale mode in PS and then shrink the image down to about 100 pixels tall. At this thumbnail level, everything should read clearly with no guesses about what's going on in the picture. Your value groups should be simplified down enough to where the design of your composition can be broken down into very basic shapes, the simpler the better. Right now there's not enough pushing her away form the background, because you're using the same values for your foreground and background as well as edges and texture. Your focal point is the girl, mainly what's happening between her face and the magic orb, so make sure that your lighting/edges support this and emphasize ONLY what you what to be focused on. Keep your lighting consistent and make sure it works for your image, and you'll be solid everytime.