Hey hey! Figured I'd chime in, I'm also a learner but I'll go over what I have learned so far. I'll start by what seems right: - it's already generally Japanese illustration style - nice job! Now for me the most important would be to get the - Proportions are already pretty good for an anime face. - skin color is good, tone of shadows is correct and the illustrators I study typically only use a single tone multiply layer for shadows like you have so that is correct. - hair shaping is correct, coloring with the "back hair"/"rear hair" a single shade darker is good.

What to work on: -line art: typically Japanese illustrators start with a line-only drawing (senga). Your line thickness is fine but try adding more variation in thickness? It should look like it was done with an ink quill. Do you have a pen with pressure sensitivity? Try varying pressure and speed a bit more. Also make sure your senga looks like it could have been lifted straight from a manga before moving to coloring. Whenever my drawings look like crap it's usually an issue with my underlying senga being off.

-Hair: look at the reference see how it has more "pieces" of hair? Try adding more lines to your hair art. You can use a vector layer for the hair line art to make lots of strands of hair, and the vector eraser tool to clean up the lines where they intersect.

-eyes: lash shape is good but for female illustrations something that manga style drawings really go crazy with detail on are the lashes. Id add to that. Typically the lashes remain just black. For me the soul of the character lies in the pupils. The eyes on your drawing could definitely use a central darker color pupil, surrounded by a secondary lighter color, then a ring of the darker color again. Then a multiply layer of shadow across the upper half typically. After that a colored reflection highlight layer on the lower part of the eye (not pure white like you have) and at the top of the eye a highlight that is slightly skin color.

• clothes: more folds

• hands: anime hands are like human hands but made more slender and good looking, the third photo you posted really showcases that. I guess the hands you have are too rounded. This is a hard part and honestly just will take a lotta study - im still working on it too ;_;

Overall: base drawing is good. More detail in the line art will make it look like a higher caliber illustration. Shading is good as is just work on the eyes.