@dafoota ok this makes so much sense. I did go back and forth about what you might have been trying to do! But you see, you didn't specifically say what you were working on in this cover when you asked for the critique, and you have the technical skill that what I saw seemed to me to communicate something fully intentionally and confidently. None of us are in complete control of the messages in our art, so I thought that what I read as disempowering a female character might have been standard in places where fan art is exchanged. That's why I talked about market. Fan art has a whole visual language I'm not familiar with. I'm coming from the place of reading the book to my child, and not understanding why the visual representations of Dorothy she can come across are adult versions and keep thinking of how to explain it in terms of other works of art, like the movie, where Dorothy is an adult.
It can also be a healthy thing to point out something uncomfortable that you don't want a talented illustrator to be unaware of as they show their work to others, so hopefully you can see that point of view as a big benefit of this forum. It really matters to me where YOU want to take your art, not just what I think of it.
I guess what you can also take from my honest reaction is that you have the technical skill to communicate a powerful idea. And that is a good thing that we all need. I would not have written what I wrote above if you didn't have really good technical skills that show you know what you're doing.
So now that you've explained I can give you my honest critique instead of an honest reaction! You might want to decide who you want Dorothy to be in this story as a character because the makeup doesn't really fit any of the stories I know and takes me right out of your image. Then see how your idea of the tornado twisting around her will fit into these things about her character. The visual is a really strong one so I hope you see it through. Compositionally, it might work better if you zoom out. Maybe try showing how it's lifting her. In the book, the tornado changes her life for the better, so i think it would help to decide how Dorothy feels about it (she was scared at first, but then grew relaxed like the look you were going for) and make sure her whole body gesture fits. If she's awed, she might not be so tense, she might be more amazed and watching this tornado around her.
Anyway, thank you for listening and responding, and thank you for taking the time to show us what you're working on. And I apologize if I offended you because I did not mean to.