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@edmund-lloyd-fletcher

I want to add one thing to what @calidris already said!

A huge part of the chibi art style revolves around drawing soft, cute “baby” like features.  By making the head really big and wide, and making the body and arms/legs shorter and fatter, you can make your characters read more like chibis.  Also, something I’ve struggled with is the exact proportions of the head.  I used to give my chibi characters a normal, albeit oversized head, but that just looked really… w r o n g.  If you make the cheekbones softer, give the character a bigger head, and make their chin smaller, it’s really going to to help your character look cuter, which is really what the chibi art style boils down to.

The ‘bigger head’ thing doesn’t just apply to the face either. You have to scale up the cranium to match it. I always have to double-check that I don’t make the face too big and the head too small.

Another proportional thing that will make characters read as cuter is to change the proportions of the face. For adults, the eyeline is slightly above the middle of the head. The younger a character is, the lower their eyeline will be. You can find facial proportion charts online, for chibis you’re aiming for a younger look, which will look cuter.

This is something I still use pretty often. When I want a character to read as cuter, I’ll move their eyeline to the center or even just below.

Besides that, you can stylize the eyes by moving them just a touch wider apart. Usually, there’s one eye length between them, but if you want a character to look cuter you can move this just slightly further apart. This can also make a character’s face appear more cat-like, which can be something you’re going for with some characters!

You’ve already made a great start! I noticed you’re pushing your shadows toward purple and your light toward yellow, which is great! A lot of people start by shading with black, which never looks great, the purples and yellows make it much more interesting!

I love using Krita as well, it’s been my favorite program for years and it’s seldom failed me!

Are you drawing with your mouse, or do you have a drawing tablet?