I need help! Epic/Mech/PinUp

[6ideon]

I've still got A LOT of work left to do on this, but I'm kind of hitting a wall with it and not sure why. I do hate the background, but I'm having a hard time deciding where exactly to go with it. The Idea is that she is impromptu posing on this Mech that has been abandoned some where after a conflict, and all battle scarred and rusted etc. Any thoughts are appreciated, not too concerned about here anatomy right now since I've hardly done any rendering on the girl yet. I would like to use this as a portfolio piece so I thanks again!

[Giacomo]

The mech looks reasonably OK (although the feet need some serious attention), but the girl---for God's sake, find some photo reference.

[Hexokinase]

Let's see your thumbnails.

[L!nK]

Well, ignoring the anatomy on the girl, I think there's little contrast, and the ground seems flat. The upper part of the mecha, wich I think was hit by an explosion or something, doesn't seems like metal. I think the center of attention should be the girl, and now she looks too much to the right corner.
And this is just a matter of opinion: The colors. It could be in a sunny day, like you're trying to depict now. But wouldn't be more appropriate some more warm colors, like a morre "wasteland" feel?

[VawnOTheDawn]

Having such a dark brown color in the darks of her skin isn't right either. For one thing, shadows on warmly colored objects (like skin) are generally cooler; less saturated, closer to gray. Furthermore, that side of her would be picking up reflections from the metal robot, and right now highlights in the shadows are nonexistant.

[Sunny]

draw it. you are going way ahead of yourself and trying to paint when you have no idea what your painting. do the work of drawing.

i took the liberty to reduce your painting to lines so you could easily see what you do have and whats lacking. i did some basic google searches. one for 'mech', one for 'pinup' and one for 'amazing landscapes' then found references I would prefer. This is what you should do, then work from them to create your unique image.

[arenhaus]

You are making it unnecessarily hard for yourself by not following the process. Look closely at your picture: some parts are nearly finished, with texture (e.g. bits of the mech's legs), some parts are barely structured (e.g. most of the girl), some are even absent.

You should solve painting problems incrementally instead of jumping back and forth, it's easier that way. Resolve the composition first, in thumbnail sketches. Then resolve the perspective and structure, in a rough sketch. Then resolve the lighting in a tonal sketch. Then tighten structure, perspective and anatomy in a clean-up structural drawing, if your rough is too loose to support the painting. Then make the underpainting to block in the main masses of color, light and shadow - this stage pulls everything (thumbnail, structural drawing and tonal sketch) together. Only then you can focus on detail and texture and whatnot.

If you try to skip stages, you risk polishing a badly constructed or badly composed drawing. If you jump between stages, you'll never pull the disparate parts together.

[justa]

Sunny and Arenhaus are quite correct, so I can only concur.

D'Arcy