Some painting for my Personal Project Book Dragons - Feedback very Welcome

[kai satoshi]

I took a break from working on the Dragon in the boat so I could come back to it with fresh eyes. Here is the next one I've been working on. As Always... Critiques are welcome. Thanks!

[kai satoshi]

Revised

[Nazuba]

@kai-satoshi Loving your work, Kai. In this piece though, if the yellow light is so bright behind the little creature, it should come over (like wrap around) the creature just a little bit since he is a rounded form. Also, some light should bounce from the mat into his face. Just some out of context feedback based on the light, I am not sure what you intended on this piece.

[kai satoshi]

@Nazuba Wonderful points! Because of the lighting setup, I have to admit I am struggling on the dragon to make his values contrast to the light behind him. I'm definitely going to attempt what you are suggesting but I am fighting the dragon being dark (value) to the light being light (value). When I begin adding light to him to wrap around I end up killing the contrast. UG! lol. But I will definitely continue to mess with it to see if I can make it work.

[kai satoshi]

revised again On this one I changed the values around so I could get more lighting on the dragon. So instead of the cave being lighting and the dragon darker I flip flopped it and made the dragon lighter and the cave darker.

[Joy Heyer]

I'm loving these illustrations! I do feel you could make more of a gradation in the cave mouth. It kind-of looks like the dragon has a heavenly halo rather than back lit. Also, the moon seems a little too close to the edges of the image. And, though I don't know that it matters, would not be that shape unless there was a solar eclipse. I suggest making it smaller, tweaking it's shape, and moving it away from the edges more. All in all it is beautiful rendering. I love the style!

[kai satoshi]

@Joy-Heyer Thanks Joy. Been working on that illustration for a bit. Especially the gradation :). Thank you for the critique

[kai satoshi]

Here is another image I've been working on. Was planning on leaving the background white/no background. Anyway here it is.

[smceccarelli]

These are all wonderful! I particularly like the last one and the one with the mermaid. This book is going to be awesome, are you going to query with it or self-publish?

[kai satoshi]

@smceccarelli Thank you so much! I'd love to find a publisher that would be interested, unfortunately I don't have an agent, and I know it is pretty difficult to get your foot in the door so I'm thinking of self publishing on Amazon.

[kai satoshi]

another

[kai satoshi]

[MirkaH]

@kai-satoshi I love the colors and mood. I'd move him up on the roof edge a little, he doesn t look natural that far back and looks like he's about to slide off backwards off the roof.

[kai satoshi]

@MirkaH Thanks! and thank you for the critique!

[andyjewett]

Looks really fun.