Oh! You nailed it!
Evelyn reads so well against her background - those blues of the ground and sky are so rich! And her warm colors really make her pop.
A disgression - I think sometimes with watercolor we try and make the paint do something that it just can't do - it's not acrylic or oil, and it just can't accomplish the same vibrancy that those mediums can produce. It's got a mind of its own - but we do get a softer story with it, and that beautiful gradation of color when we do wet in wet. What kind of watercolor do you use?
I agree with what was said - the improvement is night and day and I'm so glad you decided to retackle this subject - the choice to change up the composition was perfect.
How does the piece look if you flip it horizontally? I feel like I heard that an image is stronger if it reads left to right for western markets. What if Evelyn flew right and everyone else flew left?

Ahhhh! So cute!!! And I just love that you know seahorse behavior and had to adjust reality in order to make this image - I run into that dilemma too :p
I really love the expression of the dragon here - it makes it approachable, and the colors that you chose for the whole image are harmonious and give the whole image a playful feel.
Watercolor is tricky to change once it's down - so this feedback is perhaps good for thought for future work? But I really love this idea, so I selfishly hope you do it over once a year and use it as the image that shows the progress of your work - but I digress -
The little sea horses are really hard to read - I think it has to do with two things. The color of them just flows into the rest of the image and they get lost. They just don't read as vibrant as the dragon. You could possibly do another wash of yellow over them, but since you're using pen and ink with the watercolor you could also thicken the line width a bit - just enough to give them shape but not lose their wispiness. And maybe even put some light detail into them. Another thing is their shape - sea horses are so easy to break down into symbols that read as sea horses - you did it with the dragon and I love how it made him pop and gave you the opportunity to give him expressions. The problem with sea dragons is they read as seaweed - which hey, is their natural form of protection. But for an illustration, with objects so delicate, you want them to say "I'm a sea dragon!" At first glance. My suggestion is to either play around with drawing sea dragons until you get a shape that speaks to their identity at first glance, or perhaps draw them as sea horses.
Mermay is coming up, and this would be a really rad story to tell

Beep beep boop boop-
Here's the progressss on the collab - I would love to get feedback before I move on - I'm really starting to feel this piece but I'm curious if it's all reading well and flowing well Are the shapes feeling good in relationship to each other and does it feel like there is distance in the piece? Is anything bothering you?
I'm liking the idea of leaving the top end of the illo open, to let the fire and smoke breath up into a long snaking column.
I'm still really unsure on how to draw the trees and fire and smoke - so there's some research for me to do, and I definitely want to add more chaos into the waves themselves.
Thank you

My boyfriend liked those too - my favorite is 6, but it is really sad - so I think I'm going to push 1 for our collab and if I have extra time push 6.

@burvantill oh! I like that idea with the extreme foreground!
Silly Buster :p

Ok!
I did my homework! I just had to figure out a story I wanted to tell - which is always one of the hardest parts for me. This is about a family of Mammoths that we're forced to leave the mainland of Southern California 30,000 years ago to find a new home on one of the islands just off the coast (where they evolved into pygmy Mammoths (cuuute) and then also went extinct (booo). So I'm going for a double tragedy kind of feel here).
I did a lot of research by going down memory lane - The White Seal, The Last Unicorn, The Land Before Time - I want this to be suggested terror/violence that an 6-8 year old can digest, in the 70's.

All the images are of the Mammoth's escaping a fire.
I hope they're clear enough to see! Because I would love feedback on which ones you're feeling/which ones are working.

Just in case the visual's aren't clear -
1.View of Elephants swimming away from the beach, with the "hero" mammoth standing at the shore making sure everyone gets in safely. (kind of a Jurassic World Brachiosaurus kind of vibe)
2.Hero elephant fighting off flames while family escapes into water and swims away.

3. Mammoth holding up burning log while baby mammoth escapes beneath it.
   4.Elephants swimming away from a burning beach, with swells of water.
   5.Hero elephant fighting off flames while family escapes into water and swims away.
   6.Elephants at edge of cliff with fire approaching. Some escape down the cliffs narrow patch, while some are forced to jump/fall from edge.

Lol - don't hate me, but I think you had it right on the first pass :p I think your original size read more "raccoon."
I don't think the cage is too big at all - I think you're right, the value of that cage should be similar to the background, so that can help pull it all back and it won't compete.
I love the idea of you pushing the gesture of right raccoon to match the motion of the the other raccoons I didn't even notice how he was kind of half-assing it. "Come on Colin! Get your head in the game!"

Haha, and one last thing cause I just noticed it - does the middle raccoon's head look like it's in an inappropriate place? I don't know if it's worth mentioning, but the bear does look a little surprised IF it feels a little bit funky, I think it can easily be fixed by grouping the middle raccoon with either his right or left comrade - this may push the dynamic feel of it too, by giving it more of a forced visual angle to draw your eye in, and you can still keep his head according to the golden ration. Win Win Win? You loose some of that balance with him in the center, but I think that's ok with this being a mid-action illustration.

I just love these bandit Raccoons.

This is so cool! I can't participate right now because I have a few others projects I'm working on, but I'm so curious to follow this thread and your works! Anyone posting their progress for this on instagram? I'd love to follow along.
I'll definitely be bookmarking this book for later.

@demotlj
Oh yes! So dynamic!
And I think you could totally do this is watercolor. It helps me to do studies about half the size, so the pressure of a final piece isn't on me. And I know we're supposed to layer slowly with watercolor, but maybe try one where put the correct value down for each part of the illustration with a single wash. For example, if the main part of the bat shadows are a level 8 dark, mix up your color and use less water to achieve that value/saturation in single strokes of shadow shapes. Just for fun! It just looks like you're a little hesitant to use a lot of color at once, as I am, and this might help push you past your comfort zones.

Yus! I love the Bears expression!
Is it easy to play with the size of the raccoons in the foreground? I'm curious what they would look like as larger objects, for experimentation sake.