They've been showing a lot of Bob Ross during lockdown in UK. I wasn't consciously aiming for a Ross style piece, but I think he'd approve of this approach nonetheless! I'm calling this "Joy of Bongo". It's even got a happy little tree, and countless "happy accidents"! Lol.

I did get a bit carried away and smashed my stylus to pieces when I beat the devil out of it.

Thanks to all those that helped in the forums, much appreciated!

"Legend tells of a mythical creature that plagues the swamplands to the East. Many brave adventurers have sought to slay it, none have been seen again."

Thanks to all in the forums for their help, always very much appreciated.

My Take on Isolation - A shipwrecked Pirate Rat (or Pi-Rat - ahem) who in his madness and boredom has built himself a little social scene. Now, however, he cant help feeling his new coconut friends are having a better time than he is!

@Lee-White i would just like to say i think you personally deserve a lot of credit in your handling of this matter, ive seen a couple of your Youtube comments on the video, and despite conversing with seemily very unreasonable irrational people, you always conduct yourself with the utmost decorum. Not easily done given the circumstances, so fair play to you, as they say round here!

Hi all,

I've finally managed to put Red Dead Redemption down and get working again, enjoyed the month off though! I thought I'd try for a darker tone for this month, something like a 'Card Art' style image, definitely not a children's illustration, try and be a bit more realistic.

So this image is meant to feel as though the viewer has just stumbled into the dragonfly's lair and disturbed him, there's a skeleton half in the swamp in the foreground, roots and stuff growing over him, whilst the dragonfly is about to eat a dead warrior.
I know the drawing is rubbish, and he looks like a muppet, hopefully i will come up with a decent character design, just trying to get an idea down at the moment.

If anyone has got any thoughts/ideas on composition, value, anything else, id be grateful to hear 'em! Thankyou!

He said he was closed!

Ultimately does it really matter? Its just a bit of fun. Everyone has the opportunity to use this forum to get a ton of feedback, so who really cares who wins the contest? The judges give their opinions, take 'em or leave 'em.

@Shyam-Sailus thats actually quite a patronizing response to what was a helpful and considerate piece of advice from @Heather-Boyd.

Keep working hard, you will definately improve. But without structure, you will improve more slowly, thats all she was saying. Im ok though thanks, i dont need a motivational allegory sent my way.

@arielg i think you may be better off thinking less about colour, and more about light. Think in terms of value, then you will realise that colour is actually a lot less important than you think. Get the value right, and you can pretty much use whatever colour you want, within reason.

The colour of your object is a combination of the local colour (a red salamander) and what ever colour you shine on it. If you shine a bright blue light on a red salamander, in a pitch black room, it will certainly not appear red.

Watch this video, it will change your life!

https://youtu.be/_fyo_cHVlFg

@Braxton hi, firstly i would like to say that your drawing is spot on, no qualms there, the character silhouettes read great, but i think that there might be an issue here with the concept itself, rather that composition.

The way i interpret the prompt, is that there should be some reason why the kid thinks today is her lucky day, like she set a trap or something, and that this should be the focus of the illustration. There are going to be a ton of pictures of little girls pointing cameras at ink bottles with fairies next to em, but thats not interesting, theres no story there. I think with your ability you could probably throw an extra story telling element in there to make it more interesting.

@Wouter-Pasman hi, i like the cartoony style, but it looks like the scene is taking place in the dead of night, the blacks in the background are jet black, so im assuming that all the light in the scene is coming from the fairy. In which case it should not he so bright. If it was putting out this much light the druid would be blinded. I think a more realistic lighting scenerio would be to light the whole thing by moonlight, put some more colour in the background, as night is rarely completely black, theres often loads of colours at night, the moon can be pretty bright. Check out some nocturnes from old masters, still pretty bright. Then you could have the fairy casting a secondary coloured light on the druid.

@VeronicaMui its fine to use whatever you want, but use it wisely. Reference should just be exactly that. For example, If you need to know how armour connects to a body, get loads of pictures of armour and study them, then work out how your armour would connect to your character. Work out how armour reflects light, and apply the theory to your lighting setup in your artwork. If you want to steal armour designs, steal em, but steal from lots of places and put em all on one character, and change em a bit, so your character is now unique. No copying there! If you just find a picture of a knight and copy it exactly, thats not using reference properly.

Its fine to steal. Just dont get caught!

@franksandovalart thats amazing, yes im very interested, ill check them out! Thanks for letting me know!

@rachy I went to college at Worcester Sixth Form! Lol. Im from Stourport-on-Severn.

@CaseyKinseyArt hi, like others have said, the drawing good, few little things i agree with have already been mentioned, but my main comment would be that the lighting could be improved. Using the cactus in the bottom right midground as a point of reference, the cast shadows indicate that the light is coming from the left as we look at it. But the cactus itself isnt painted this way. The left side should be lit, the right in shadow. But each individual component of the cactus is painted with both light and shadow, and generally the value of the cactus is the same whether in light or shadow. Same with the main guy, the light seems to come from all directions, as such the forms arent believable. If i get chance later ill do a quick drawover of what i mean, might make more sense.

@Saher-Yosry hi, its mostly working, the drawing is good, however i think the biggest problem is that the door is the brightest area of the painting, the mouse has the same value as much of the background, and the viewer ends up just staring at the mouse hole. It may be an idea to adjust the composition so the hole is out of shot, or put a little door in half closed to get rid of the light there, and put an internal light in the room to light the mouse. You could adjust the composition so the door is directly behind the mouse, and we see his silhouette.