Alright, mate, buckle up!
Composition, scale, atmospheric perspective.
The composition is very uninteresting. It's too symmetric - a character to the right, a ball to the left, both of the same size. The landscaping isn't mirrored, but the clouds are pretty much the same left or right.
The scale is confusing. We have the character and the ball of light (I don't actually know what this is supposed to be, sorry) and because they are the same size, they come across as being equaly important. If that is the case, why are they separated like that? Why is there no interaction between them?
The atmospheric perspective is fine, until we get to the foreground. You go from very light to medium and then? Where is the dark?
I like the trees, they suggest this is an environment and not just a background, but what is causing them to look like that? It looks like there is some very strong wind going on, but the rest of environment isn't reacting, both the clouds and the ground are still.
Here's a little paintover. It's very rough and a bit hard to look at, but hopefully you get what I'm trying to show.
The most important thing I've done here is break up the symmetry of the image. I've made the character slightly bigger, the ball a bit smaller and moved the ball more to the centre, but still kept it on the left side.
Then I changed the shapes of the background, I've made the clouds and the ground uneven. I also added a darker value for the foreground but it looks horribly sloppy. Anyway~
I also added a little tornado and that's for three reasons:
1) It interrupts the mid grey tone of the background, creating visual interest.
2) It explains the behaviour of the trees, building upon a story element and again, creating visual interest.
3) The dark of the tornado contrasts with the near white of the sphere way better than the grey. Again, adds visual interest.
Aaand I also changed the values of the character a bit, I don't think there is a strong light source anywhere, but having them so even is plain boring.
I hope you get something out of my little critique, keep it up!
{edits because apparently I don't know where left and right are}
You're very right about the symmetry, great call! I shall fix that in some fashion, probally make the ball a lot larger and more impressive.
As for the windy/non-windy elements and the values I just haven't developed those fully here. The light ball thing is meant to emanate wind, like a dragon ball z power up kinda thing (the ball by the way as I think of it, is meant to be the physical(energical?) embodiment of all the little mans power, and it's charging up and getting ready to blow/fire/shoot/implode/etc..). The fact that you don't know what the ball is, is useful in that I know I need to describe it more now and show an interaction there as you said.
I haven't really fully figured out enough how to show these windy elements in the piece I need to do more research and reference digging for that.
As for the lights I very much have not figured all my lighting out here yet, that'll come after the composition, I just shot way ahead with the character, which was definitely a workflow mistake on my part. You are correct though about the hierarchy being off with the values around the ball, it's very much the secondary thing but will not pop as I have done it.
Hopefully I'll get a more interesting lighting developed on the ball and the character too.
Thanks for taking the time to help here, really appreciate it!
16 days later
Hey dudes and dudettes, was inspired by some other dudes on here to push my posing of my character here and try and get in more perspective to make him more interesting. So here's a pic before and after of the pose! If your looking at this if you could let me know if you prefer the old or new pose and if you know anyway to push the pose/perspective more effectively/efficiently I would really aprreciate it!!
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