Hi Phill! I just wanted to say that I really like your work with greenery and the foresty cape of the creature. Reminds me a bit of Ghibli's Chihiro's spectre creature merged with Mononoke's forest universe. Looks fun.

I'd probably work a bit on the mood - I can't quite read it (threatening, surprise, good, bad?) and the background is a bit flat. Perhaps working on the lighting will fix both?

But I agree with Coreyartus - it makes me really curious to know the story.

I concur with @neschof on the botanical, because basically Beatrix Potter is more draftsman and her work uses dry strokes with fine lines and dabs - mind, not dry brushing, but she doesn't use a lot of wet-in-wet and high pigment direct application like Lee or Marco Bucci. I'd do copies / studies of her work directly, using transparent but not staining pigments and avoid the newer ones like pthalo, quinacridones, transparent yellow, etc. I'd probably try sticking with Lee's earthy palette though, and see how much you can achieve with just siennas, ultramarine, cobalt, maybe oxide... hm... I'll get out my big Potter book tomorrow and have a closer look :p Best way to learn is to try out ^^

Hehe, like it that the phoenix is called night -- nice oximoron-like setup, very fun!

Hi, same here; love the idea, spirit and atmosphere, thumbs up! Story-wise I'd prefer the first composition to the second one, because of the "sneaking up" vs "sneaking down", i.e. he's sneaking up on her, but it isn't threatening, more curious, wondering, maybe a little afraid, but mostly curious, while sneaking down gives me a more prohibitive, "threat looming" feel and I prefer the first :p

One thing about the first that caught my eye in the first glance was the stark contrast of the chandelier over the boy. Value-wise it's just as strong as the contrast of the boy's head-to-face-to-candle-light, so the eye jumps between the two and detracts from the main actor. Perhaps you don't need the chandelier lit up, seeing that he has a candle anyhow, or you could put those old glass blobby glass-thingies around them that dim them and maybe darken the whole area towards the ceiling in the staircase. But really like the story, character design and feeling in that image!!

@demotlj For the line work that blends in with watercolor, just use watercolor. It's gotten a bit forgotten, but I think historically, in the past, long long in faraway England :p , watercolor was considered to be a drawing medium, not a painting medium in the sense that you used the brush like a pen (which is perhaps why Winsor and Newton's Series 7 are so good ). It was used for detailed, draftsmanship; to add slight color to fine drawings (see the Dutch landscape painters' prep work), less for loose, painterly, expressive application that is popular nowadays. And they used the watercolor brush to apply hatching and line, instead of washes. It's slower, so few people do it now. Plus you need to know how to draw, to few people do it now. Plus I think in the US people are more familiar with Sargent, Winslow Homer and perhaps Tuner's late work. But look at Germans (I'm from Germany, so I've got other influences) like Dürer's watercolors, look at the Dutch Golden Age watercolors, Pisanello. Look at the hatching work in Giovanna Garzoni's work - it's 17th century tempera - but basically tempera style is exactly what you're looking at I think - transparent, colorful but subtle, linework, draftsmanship. Hope that helps.

@StudioLooong Really nice image! I especially like the scene in the snowglobe, so much so that I would probably crop it to have a nice single focus on it, like so.

@Jeremy-Ross Hehe, so does the fat passive bunny represent the agent? ^^

Yepp, ship ship and away! Happy sailing, great work, nothing to add, kudos.

@Jeremy-Ross Hehe, so does the fat passive bunny represent the agent? ^^

Yepp, ship ship and away! Happy sailing, great work, nothing to add, kudos.

Hehe, like it that the phoenix is called night -- nice oximoron-like setup, very fun!

Love it too! Nitpicking: I feel like the spaceship is rendered in a different style than the environment and the foreground trees are very don't have as much detail / definition, although they're much closer. I get that the foreground trees are out of focus, but it looks a little too airbrushy for my taste, whereas I like how the plates on the ship are done. The more I look at it, the more discrepancies I notice in rendering / styles between the airbrushy values on the trees, the cartooney snow with the strong highlights, the painterly spaceship and flat background trees. But I like the comp and lighting. Does that help?

@demotlj For the line work that blends in with watercolor, just use watercolor. It's gotten a bit forgotten, but I think historically, in the past, long long in faraway England :p , watercolor was considered to be a drawing medium, not a painting medium in the sense that you used the brush like a pen (which is perhaps why Winsor and Newton's Series 7 are so good ). It was used for detailed, draftsmanship; to add slight color to fine drawings (see the Dutch landscape painters' prep work), less for loose, painterly, expressive application that is popular nowadays. And they used the watercolor brush to apply hatching and line, instead of washes. It's slower, so few people do it now. Plus you need to know how to draw, to few people do it now. Plus I think in the US people are more familiar with Sargent, Winslow Homer and perhaps Tuner's late work. But look at Germans (I'm from Germany, so I've got other influences) like Dürer's watercolors, look at the Dutch Golden Age watercolors, Pisanello. Look at the hatching work in Giovanna Garzoni's work - it's 17th century tempera - but basically tempera style is exactly what you're looking at I think - transparent, colorful but subtle, linework, draftsmanship. Hope that helps.

Hi, a comment on the lighting - if the character is standing in the shadow of the mountain / iceberg, then she shouldn't be lit on the right half. Also, I think the mid- and background should decrease in contrast t go back and establish clearer middle and backgrounds, however the igloo is outlined and highlighted which brings it forward and the levels of distance aren't too clear to me. i'd try going smaller, using bigger shapes with few tone values to try different stuff out. Hope that helps

I concur with @neschof on the botanical, because basically Beatrix Potter is more draftsman and her work uses dry strokes with fine lines and dabs - mind, not dry brushing, but she doesn't use a lot of wet-in-wet and high pigment direct application like Lee or Marco Bucci. I'd do copies / studies of her work directly, using transparent but not staining pigments and avoid the newer ones like pthalo, quinacridones, transparent yellow, etc. I'd probably try sticking with Lee's earthy palette though, and see how much you can achieve with just siennas, ultramarine, cobalt, maybe oxide... hm... I'll get out my big Potter book tomorrow and have a closer look :p Best way to learn is to try out ^^

@StudioLooong Really nice image! I especially like the scene in the snowglobe, so much so that I would probably crop it to have a nice single focus on it, like so.

Hi, same here; love the idea, spirit and atmosphere, thumbs up! Story-wise I'd prefer the first composition to the second one, because of the "sneaking up" vs "sneaking down", i.e. he's sneaking up on her, but it isn't threatening, more curious, wondering, maybe a little afraid, but mostly curious, while sneaking down gives me a more prohibitive, "threat looming" feel and I prefer the first :p

One thing about the first that caught my eye in the first glance was the stark contrast of the chandelier over the boy. Value-wise it's just as strong as the contrast of the boy's head-to-face-to-candle-light, so the eye jumps between the two and detracts from the main actor. Perhaps you don't need the chandelier lit up, seeing that he has a candle anyhow, or you could put those old glass blobby glass-thingies around them that dim them and maybe darken the whole area towards the ceiling in the staircase. But really like the story, character design and feeling in that image!!

@Phil-Cullen Glad it helped, keep up the good work!