Esther

Hey, her face is really cute and adorable I like how the glasses and the book here changed air from her ref sheet and l like this character already. Unconsciously, I am attracted to gray (okay, her hair is actually white) as I had picked gray kitten Nabi among the litter. The size of her shoulder looks good. I like using a candle here. Although I think the background or shadows should be bit darker with one candle light. But not so bad. I think the candle here is blurred too much since it is a good featured object in this drawing.  

I only use few functions with Photoshop so not a person to talk about it in front of you. But about the line art, couldn't you have used image/adjustments/threshold to delete the dark gray? I use the function to delete the real life shadows on the white sketchbook background, which my camera picks up.

And what is the purpose of dark gray in the background layer?