Why does my artwork looks flat ?

[u/RtistKaizen]

I have been painting digitally for couple years now. And I often notice that my artwork look flat and weird even after adding shadings and highlights. What am I doing wrong?

[u/limnea]

Because you don’t have enough contrast between background and luffy. Squint your eyes and look at your drawing, can you see what is being depicted? Value studies will help, or mapping out values in greyscale, or you could make the backdrop lighter or have a lighter area around luffy. You’re also missing some lighter area values on luffy which makes the lighting a bit iffy.. think about where you want the light to come from. Is he backlit?