I was pleased with the fantasy city, given that I didn't use a reference for it. It's just a sort of vague idea of fantasy Oxford, but with rather more domes.
The faces are the area I really need to improve more I think. Maybe I'll do some portraits. *sighs, I hate portraits and am terrible at them. But I think they might be necessary...*
You've got a lot done right in this piece, including some of the awkward movements you see in spontaneous things like swordfighting.
However, the move your left-hand figure is doing is just wrong, in terms of how one fights with a sword - he's directing his opponent's sword into his own arm! When you parry a sword, you parry it away from yourself. If you're working with 2 weapons like he is, generally you parry to the outside of the weapon you're using to parry (unless it's a desperation counter, in which case you're sometimes just trying to avoid a killing wound and know you may take a non-vital blow in the process). So either he should be using the main gauche (knife) to push the sword blade towards the viewer or he should be using his rapier to parry the sword blade away from himself.
Well, that's the problem with using a reference photo for poses. The people in the photo are not always behaving exactly as they possibly should be. That's definitely exactly what she's doing in the photo, but you often get that with photos: that one moment when arms and legs seem like they are in the wrong place and shouldn't ever work that way, but the overall movement looks like it makes sense unless you see it in stopmotion.
I got the impression that he'd been a bit sloppy with the dagger as he over-extended his lunge, left the sword hand exposed a bit, and rushed the dagger back to a defensive posture just a little too late - hence the slightly rueful smile as he gets his wrist tapped by her sword.
I very much like the picture. It really does look like the sort of thing you get in mediaeval fencing manuscripts, but with a better background :-)
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I'm also impressed with how how watery the water is.
However, the move your left-hand figure is doing is just wrong, in terms of how one fights with a sword - he's directing his opponent's sword into his own arm! When you parry a sword, you parry it away from yourself. If you're working with 2 weapons like he is, generally you parry to the outside of the weapon you're using to parry (unless it's a desperation counter, in which case you're sometimes just trying to avoid a killing wound and know you may take a non-vital blow in the process). So either he should be using the main gauche (knife) to push the sword blade towards the viewer or he should be using his rapier to parry the sword blade away from himself.
I very much like the picture. It really does look like the sort of thing you get in mediaeval fencing manuscripts, but with a better background :-)