Here's my first attempt at an idea/thumbnail...

alternative title: Industrial Pixie Town

Hello, my name is John...

I'm currently artistically homeless, forum-wise and stumbled across this place via a Jake Parker link. Been trying to get back into drawing for months but random chunks of life sort of got in the way, also I seem to draw a lot in my sketchbook but never seem to do any finished work. Here's some of my old sketchbook stuff...

idea I had for a comic...

Thanks everyone. Here's some more finished pieces....

contents page illustration for 'The End is Nigh' magazine

spot illustration for 'The End is Nigh' magazine

characters from an idea for a children's book

another idea... use an old photo as a framing device and desaturate it to black/white

Character design for a comic-strip I'm working on...

@Eric-Castleman another small tweak... if the leaves overlap the photo it looks like it's been blown away by the wind, sort of a lost and discarded photo which adds another layer of meaning to the image

A few suggestions...
I think you need to add more contrast to your lighting, so make the foreground darker as it's under a sofa, keep the midground the same and make the background lighter. Also study some light logic, especially how form shadows work. The cast shadow under the sofa wouldn't be purple but a darker shade of the carpet colour. Also as there's less light under the sofa introducing a strong light source like the fire on the squirrel's tail would create some really harsh shadows. Hope that's helpful.

I'd say the first pic would work better in a series of sequential images e.g. comic or illustrated book. It doesn't really work as a standalone image

The second pic... one of the first 'how to' books I read was 'How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way' and the following drawing is vividly embedded in my brain to this day...

If you are drawing an action either draw the very beginning of the movement or the very end, anything in-between lacks energy or impact, which is something other people have picked up on. So if you combine the first pic and the second pic you get something with a bit more movement...

I also made them them look at each other. It doesn't matter what composition you use if there's a face in the image your eye will go straight for it and then your eye will look at what the face is looking at. So when they look at each other it's makes more of a fluid composition

some character ideas for my Post Apocalypse Fairy tale story

Thanks Eli and HBryant

here's some more character designs featuring a few more characters...

@HBryant yes and yes, it's his head and his brain. I wanted to combine those 50's B-Movie Aliens/Monsters with Jason Voorhees, so it's mutant, monstrous and humorous at the same time

You don't skip school when the Substitute Teacher is taking the class, Heather

The idea/joke is a Lord Humungus (from Mad Max) type character finds the murderous pillaging of the wasteland isn't as lucrative as it use to be and has to take a day job as a substitute teacher. Here's the original comic-strip from years ago, but now I want to redesign/expand it to the large 'Calvin and Hobbes' size

the website complements your artwork perfectly, top job Lei. Although personally I'd keep it simple and have one thing on one page. So instead of having the 'About' info at the bottom of everything I'd put it on it's own page and add a link/text next to 'sketches'

Character design for a comic-strip I'm working on...

looks good to me. Really love your work, Rene. Reminds me of the Phoenix comic

one word... elegant.

I really love when illustration is done simply and well designed. To me the only thing letting it down is the type, probably needs a bigger and better font and the lines of type need to be closer together so it create one big shape instead of three

I'd say the first pic would work better in a series of sequential images e.g. comic or illustrated book. It doesn't really work as a standalone image

The second pic... one of the first 'how to' books I read was 'How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way' and the following drawing is vividly embedded in my brain to this day...

If you are drawing an action either draw the very beginning of the movement or the very end, anything in-between lacks energy or impact, which is something other people have picked up on. So if you combine the first pic and the second pic you get something with a bit more movement...

I also made them them look at each other. It doesn't matter what composition you use if there's a face in the image your eye will go straight for it and then your eye will look at what the face is looking at. So when they look at each other it's makes more of a fluid composition