@AngelinaKizz I'm glad you went with this concept! This is so fun and totally what my kids would do too! I feel like Will and Jake are going to say, " hey guys, you couldn't think of anything besides the tortoise and the hare?"
Ok, so I’ve been playing with trying to achieve a colored pencil finish, and a reduced color pallette, and I’m not sure I’m overly happy with it. I know it still has a long way to go, but is it working?
@AngelinaKizz I think the colored pencil look is working but I think you could increase the range of values. I would push the playground much darker because it’s the same value as the ground and it makes a lot of the image meld together rather than popping out
@AngelinaKizz here’s a draw over and comparison. I recolored the playground, boosted the saturation of the ground, and boosted the saturation of the sky and gave it a bit of a gradient 
@Griffin thanks a bunch griffin! I hadn't worked on any of the lighting yet so this is great to see where you imagined it going. I've been working through this one so slowly, hopefully I can finish it before the 31st.
@AngelinaKizz I like the color palette, my only thing is that I feel like there are a lot of equal focal points, but maybe some good lighting can help that. Also perhaps a little more atmosphere on the rest of the jungle gym, so our characters come forward more? Overall though it’s looking really great 
@AngelinaKizz There's a lot of energy and a variety of personalities in your image, which I think is great!
I agree with @Asyas_illos that there's a lot of equal focal points. There are many faces here, and they're looking so many different directions, that it's hard for me to decide where to look, or understand what the main story or main character is. What if some of the stuffed animals were looking ahead toward the lion and/or the finish line? And the lion looked more toward the finish line than lazily gazing into the sky?
Good work, keep it up!
@AngelinaKizz Here's a quick draw over I did to move some of the eye lines, increase the expression a few places, and remove some extra details in the background and on the foreground kid's t-shirt. Of course you can take my feedback with a grain of salt (I'm not a pro!) and take/leave what you like, but hopefully another person's fresh take is helpful to you.
Cheers!
One last updated image.
I don’t feel like it’s my best work, but honestly July sucked the big one. We all got covid, AGAIN, and it knocked my whole family out. With how sick we all were, I’m shocked I even have anything finished enough to submit. I tried doing this all on one layer, to try to mimic working with colored pencils, and I definitely learned what I won’t be doing again Lol. So for me, my goal with every months prompt is to learn and grow, and this month, I think I accomplished that. So I’m gonna stare at it a bit tomorrow, and will send it in anyways. I’m still proud of myself for finishing it. 
@AngelinaKizz good for you for finishing! I think it came out great, it really feels traditional. And yes trying to accomplish anything with Covid is damn near impossible, so congrats!
@Asyas_illos thanks! Last go round with covid, only I got it. I was really sick, but I was able to watch classes and make the best of isolating. This go round was a whole different ball game.
@AngelinaKizz Here's a quick draw over I did to move some of the eye lines, increase the expression a few places, and remove some extra details in the background and on the foreground kid's t-shirt. Of course you can take my feedback with a grain of salt (I'm not a pro!) and take/leave what you like, but hopefully another person's fresh take is helpful to you.
Cheers!
