Art Critique for a newbie

[Priestly_M]

Hey everyone. I’m new around here and decided to start off by asking kindly for critique. I’m struggling to finish my drawings and taking that final step of polishing them. Also, they end up looking pretty stiff... I am self taught mostly, and my biggest hurdles are painting and interesting compositions.
Any advice/critique is hugely appreciated! :) 

Thanks!

[Baldgate]

Hey everyone. I’m new around here and decided to start off by asking kindly for critique. I’m struggling to finish my drawings and taking that final step of polishing them. Also, they end up looking pretty stiff... I am self taught mostly, and my biggest hurdles are painting and interesting compositions.
Any advice/critique is hugely appreciated! :) 

Thanks!

Hello, and welcome

polishing comes with rendering and material study. By studying skin, clothes folding, and metal you ll learn how to paint textures. There is no easy answers for that , but you can try to photobash some texture if you re in a hurry.

The stiffness may happen because of drawing and edge handling. Edge handling come from practice and is long to learn, basically you should alternate between hard and soft edge and loose some edge to make it feel more alive.

For composition, I think you should think more about the story, who is that character, what he is doing, etc. Also, its helps thinking in pattern, abstract shape. Also, iterate sketch before doing your final composition . example of bayard wu sketches  : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/N5x1lD