@JessicaLinnEvans beautiful rendering of the forest!
In reference to your closing scene: very dreamily rendered and a nice soothing "the end". Also, it seems you've left plenty of room for text, which is great.
What is the story you're trying to convey? Is there a main character or focal point?
Some things to consider:
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The composition. It seems to be split almost directly down the middle because the trees abruptly end. It feels like the left side is a forest scene and the right a meadow scene. See below -- I took a screenshot and overlaid it with a template guide to give us a visual of where bleed, margins, and gutter would fall. The crow also falls almost directly in the middle of the left side. Could it be moved to a different spot, perhaps touching the donkey so that it's not the only character who isn't touching the others? Just a thought.
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Value. What does the illustration look like when we take away color? As you see, it mainly falls into the midrange. The areas of highest contrast are often the focal point, which seem to be the tortoise & crow, the donkey, and of course the moon. Is that what you want the reader to look at first?
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Bring more focus to the characters with value. Since this is a nighttime scene, think about making it darker. Then use the moonlight to light the characters, which will make the background fade into the ... background. Following is just one example of how that might be done (both in color and black & white.)
- Add some visual interest and cohesiveness with more background and foreground. Maybe the trees could curve around and disappear over the hill ... Maybe there is another grove of trees on the horizon in the far right... Maybe there are a few grasses interspersed around the characters and trees, and a little larger in the foreground, to frame the scene...
Again, these are just my thoughts. Take this feedback with a grain of salt -- there are so many ways to approach an illustration! This is what I saw and some questions that I had regarding this beautiful scene. Looking forward to seeing where you go with it!