@lee-white You know, for someone who barely uses linear perspective -- you sure seem to know a lot about it!

It's almost like perspective is a tool you use only when it suits the needs of your image . . .

This is one of those illustrated scenes in which I would suggest breaking the "rules" of perspective in order to achieve the "loose" perspective described in your original post. Currently I would define this as "wonky" perspective. Not realistic or believable perspective at all. I don't write this as a judgement -- lots of great illustrators never use "realistic" perspective. But you seem to be going for more than that, and so I offer this suggestion below. Good luck as you continue to refine your understanding and skills.

@robgale Glad that you find these questions useful! I have found that the best keywords are ones that have an emotional connection, and are most often adjectives and verbs.

For example if you do a painting of a rock.

No one really cares about a rock in and of itself, it's what they associate with that rock that matters. So a painting of rock that is "steadfast" and "stable" is something a viewer can connect to. By contrast a rock that is painted to be "oppressive" and "looming" can evoke a completely different emotional connection and would therefore require entirely different choices regarding composition, color and even medium.

@xin-li
I do a lot of student critiques. And I've watched them either be super bland and politely generic or go weirdly off the rails too many times to not try and make the critique process more effective.

In my experience, getting genuinely useful feedback requires more from the illustrator than "What do you think of this?" (BTW, I recognize that your original post does ask fairly specific questions). I've found that if I ask the person requesting a crit a series of probing questions I can then offer feedback that responds to the illustrator's intent, and intelligently build on what is already happening in the piece.

So I'm going to try on these boards (and your post) what I've found to be incredibly successful in my college classes. Hopefully it makes any future discussion about your piece above more productive for everyone. (And if it's just annoying that's fine too)

1. Who is this piece for? (personal project, specific client, addressing a genre, exploring a technique, developing a technical skill)

2. What is the topic/theme? (illustrating an article, a story, current event issue)

3. What are your keywords? How do you feel about the source material (The topic/theme) and/or how do you want the viewer to feel? Ideally this is limited to 2-3 words, and no longer than a single sentence.

4. What compositional choices did you make to reinforce those keywords? (and not just what is placed where, but how the vales are arranged on the page)

5. What color choices did you make to reinforce those keywords?

6. What medium choices did you make to reinforce those keywords?

@teju-abiola If being forgiving in watercolor is your goal then check out the technique created by Burt Silverman and David Levine. It is crazy cool!
Here's one by David Levine (You might recognize his name from his huge career as a NYTimes pen and ink caricature artist, but he created really beautiful watercolors as well)

Burt Silverman created a how to book of the technique the two of them created:

The whole point of the technique is to allow the watercolor painter to be able to lay down a wash of color and then lift it back up. Basically to try and get all the benefits of oil painting but with the immediacy (and non-toxicity) of watercolor. I watched George Pratt (comic book watercolor painter) give a demo of the technique this last summer. Really interesting!

*Edit: I just saw that you are a senior at Ringling. So you likely have had George as an instructor. Actually now that I think about it maybe you've also already seen this particular demo? If not, sit George down and get him to paint for you!

@sarah-luann PJ Lynch is the best! So good and such an nice guy! He uses a combination of watercolor and gouache, but only a bit of gouache.
Check out his process here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d_9KkSKIzo
(be sure to follow up with part 2 for the painting part)

In the vein of recommending watercolor illustrators, I gotta mention Holly Hobbie. I was just eyeing her Night Before Christmas https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316070181/ref=sspa_dk_detail_5?psc=1
She is really good!

When asking for feedback like this it's always best to let us know what your keywords are. How do you want the viewer to feel as they look at this image? What is the tone of the podcast? Light and friendly? Serious? Darkly funny? That's what I mean when I refer to "keywords".

An image's composition fundamentally communicates keywords. How you design the image tells the viewer how they should feel.

Currently the colors are light and friendly. Type choices are round and soft. Drinking tea, reading a book. All making this image feel pleasant and quiet. I would note that the typeface is friendly but challenging to read as a script.

At the moment the figure is shoved to the left side of the image in a way the feels uncomfortable. Almost like she's trying to leave the image.

The book covers most of her face in a way that feels (to me anyway) that she's trying to hide.
Her eyes are cast down. Deeply engrossed in the book or trying to ignore the viewer?
There is a realism to the hands and teacup that is contradicted by the very stylized eyes.

This is a solid start to an image, but asking yourself these fundamental questions and then actively making choices that reinforce whatever the answers might be will make this cover that much more effective!

Congratulations on getting this inquiry!

Your questions:
- Do I charge the instrument guy something for using my design (since the work has already been done and it wasn't an actual commission by him)?

Yes, you should charge the instrument guy for using your design. The basis of the illustration profession is illustrators create an image and then license that image to various clients to reproduce that image for a fee.

-What do I charge? Like the freelancer fee that a normal - not highly famous - illustrator would charge for the two to three hours he worked on the actual drawing?

There are a variety of ways of thinking about this (an hourly rate is certainly one), but I would discourage from pricing based on the 2-3 hours spent creating the image. Instead I would encourage you to charge based on the potential value of the image to the client. To do this you would need to know:

How much does each guitar cost?
I'll pick a random amount of $500 per guitar

How many guitars will your image be used on?
I'll pick another random number of 5 guitars.

So based on the numbers above, the guitar maker expects to generate $2500 after selling all the guitars with your image on it. If you were to ask for 10%-20% of the sale price then you'd be requesting a licensing fee of $250 - $500 (or $50 - $100 per guitar)

And of course if the guitar maker sells out of the guitars they could then easily come back to you and license the image for another 5 guitars. This could continue until the guitar makers decides to stop licensing your red dragon image.

Sophie,

I've been reading (and watching) all the suggestions being made about drawing ellipses. And they are great!

There's something that hasn't yet been mentioned about the original drawings. Most of the time when an artist talks about and "ellipse" what they mean is "a circle drawn in foreshortened perspective". I'd like to clarify -- is that what you mean in your original post?

If so, then there's a more basic issue that you would need to address first. That is, the plane in which you draw your ellipse needs to be a square plane correctly drawn in perspective.

In looking at your OP drawing some definitely are squares in perspective but a number are actually rectangles in perspective. Attempting to draw a circle inside a rectangle will invariably result in an ellipse that looks "wrong".

@twiggyt Just checked out her channel and saw an immediate recommendation for the PEGS book. Yep, Kendyll seems to know what she's doing! Thanks for posting the link.