{RED LIBRARY} & Frustrations with my Style & Consistency

Here is my latest painting! Some of you have probably seen me already hard at work on this over the last week. Thank you all for the support! It has really helped. 

I wanted to share it here with you all first as unfortunately I am not sure how I feel about it overall. Idk if I should even post it to the public lol. 

When I look at the drawing, I am definitely proud of it - I came a long way since a few months ago when I drew a woman from a similar angle and much less inviting background:

I really learned alot from my studies of Ramon90 and it shows if you just compare the drawings between the two. However, I feel like the way I rendered Red Library doesn't feel like "me". Wheres the softness? Where are the beautiful lost edges? Where are the perfectly cut direct lighting shapes? Where are the rendered forms? The drawing/perspective/subject matter is really the only thing I nailed here. 

I set out to have a certain look with this that I didn't seem to hit. This is even without mentioning the fact that I this is a little hard to read - compared to an earlier version I included in the slides after the sketch. You can see how even though that one is much more simple, the contrast makes it easier to look at like the reference example I included. (one example atwork from @cuuticosmo and 2 photographs from pinterest. )

Overall, I'm struggling with planning my artwork and sticking to a consistent style. I have about 3 different styles that I draw people with, and about 3 different rendering/composition styles. This means I subconsciously create  9+ different types of work (some combos look better than others). Id really like to get that down to just 3 total, so that I can get better at them, work faster, teach more efficiently, and attract a more unified audience. 

I understand that the immediate response to wanting to buckle down and specify is to say that the variety of styles is perfectly fine and unique! While that IS definitely true, It is not the best decision for me and my career at the moment. As an educator, style begets clarity to potential students. And as an intermediate artist, specifying is the key to developing that key speed/skill level combo that is useful to potential clients. 

So what am I going to do? The biggest step I am going to take is to stop taking every sketch I like to these grandiose painting stage for now. My standards just keep going up and my skills aren't keeping up. (again, this aint a bad thing, but this is the second painting now that I have nearly completed that I don't want to post LOL. thats rare for me - I usually quit wayyy earlier) 

The new strategy is to sit down and select a main reference to study from and thake THAT illustration to a finish. TLDR: Do more studies. Real studies. I really don't do them enough. I always just use them as a reference for a face/pose that I want to draw, then mix and match a bunch of other things. I need to learn how to light and draw different things better like clothing and hair before I get caught up with my own designs. 

I'd love to know what you think If you made it this far! Should I still post this artwork? Do you agree/disagree with anything I have mentioned? 

PS: as always, the actual artwork files/versions will be shared at the end of the month!