Gladiator

I really want to start working with markers myself but I have to push it off to do digital stuff first. Unfortunate! However I do find your use of patterns and soft blends to be really beautiful. I think your use of color and rendering are fine for the most part though a lot of mistakes fall with the initial drawing and are only accentuated with the use of color. The hand coming up isn't constructed properly and yeah hands suck a bunch so don't be too discouraged just take some time to flesh them out more before going in with the markers. The face as well has proportional issues as the eyes seem to be too far up along the face which causes the bridge of the nose to have to unnaturally stretch to meet the brow line. As well the nose is misaligned with the position of the lips. Another big issue which you'll want to keep in mind is with the cast shadow on the dress from the arm. It's not conforming to the shape of the dress at all instead it looks more like it was laid in quickly at the end. Make sure you take time to have the shadow zig zag appropriately over the various folds as that will look a lot more convincing and create more depth.