Also a tip, as you can see the arm that he is holding her with is way smaller than his other hand. What I do is I usually size the hand/part that I need next to the original non used one to keep the proportions
Heyy! Ngl i use procreate since it is rly user friendly so idk how this would translate to you program.
Highlighting tips:
Lightsource
There are several tricks for highlighting that you could use, but most importantly its knowing where the light is coming from and trying to picture the drawing as 3d so you know where the light should hit. There are awesome references on pinterest if you are interested. Looking up “drawing highlight face references” will help.
Colour/ambience
Depending on the lighting, the highlight would be harsh or softer and can be many different colors. Try not to use too harsh whites at first until you rly feel like you understand lighting.
picture behind bars
Add very soft and very cold highlights, also on the bars (look up “metal highlight reference”) and on the face. I will upload an example below later.
the staring duse with purple bg
I think you are def on the right path here! I would lose the highlights in the shadows or make them softer. In stead of doing small strands of hair with highlight, try to add a sheen on more hair. Also it already helps a lot if you use a pressured brush that wont have the same thickness all the time, it will up ur game a lot and give more dimension to drawings. I will add an example below later.
Also these kinds of things have good color schemes on pinterest (PINTEREST IS GOD HERE). Try to layer lighting to get a bit of a feel, you can always erase parts to get harsher shading/lighting.
Brush type
Gamechanger. Unless you completely understand lighting, dont use very difficult one dimensional brushes. Always lower opacity and layer the brush strokes, try to opt for a brush where the thickness varies with pressure and see if that works for you.
Here i added some quick highlights. since the room feels cold and dark, i chose green/grey highlights for the skin. I layered them on and smudged them a little bit. Dont be too precise, its okay to wing it a bit. I added a red version so you can see where i added the highlights exactly.
highlights
For the shadows I picked a warmer tone from a shade already on the face. I like to mix cold/warm as i think it gives some dimension, but you can choose to do cold/cold. Since there is no backlighting, i made the shoulders darker. Again i added a version with blue light so you can see where i put the shade.
