Thank you! <3
I had completely neglected my still unnamed character's hair. At first I liked the Furiosa cut but now I'm over it. I wanted to look into Celtic styles of hair, or at least modern interpretations of long, complex braids, to mix more Celtic influence in, since the costume is very Roman. Here are my first 3 designs. I want the hair to communicate the character's wild or untamed personality, as well as their royal side.
Another aspect of Celtic hair is that it was often very decorated, gold bands, balls and colored ribbons were used, as well as combs made of bone or metal, so in that spirit I want to make an ornamental head dress to complement the horns and the hair.
Leaning towards 3 for my fav for the hair i think.
Here's a headdress I came up with.
From the beginning of costume design I've loved the idea of using the earth insignia as some sort of clasp, with feathers behind it. Here I've repurposed the idea as a sort of crown you could make with what you find in the wilds. I'm in a groove on doing this fashion/costuming stuff so I want to do a full body now.
I've been hitting a major wall for the last several days, struggling with my design and whether or not to start over. Trying and failing to make compositions for hours and hours with nothing to show. I still wanted to update this because I feel it is very important for my growth so here is the one, problem filled sketch I've come up with over the last six days.
I'm unhappy with so e of the perspective, it's too simple, its missing elements that I don't know how to place (like the snake and other beasts) and I think I'll have a hard time showing off many of the character's details. So I'm working to make more but since this little sketch literally took me almost a week, it may be another week before I update my forum again.
I think it would be worth it to produce a few small, low effort thumbnails, and not fretting on details at this point. If you're struggling, get together some pieces of artwork and other inspirations which will help you think of something, and not just wait for something good to arrive - when i find myself struggling i often indulge in the viewing of artwork, it doesn't often fail because I'm surrounded by ideas. But even if you're tired of trying to find something that works, you can still of course make this one work. You can make the image longer vertically, and that'll give some depth to his standing there and show some more of the environment for example
"Ailean The Evangel"
The Fey are an ageless people. My father said they had no beginning, and so they will have no end. What always was always will be. I’d always thought they were a myth.
The faerie standing before me now was beautiful. It’s rosy skin shone in the light of the distant moon as it stood atop its stony throne that walked on iron-hard legs of wood, holding me with its gaze; a dozens feet long serpent with gracefully curved horns, contrasting the faerie’s own, which were sharply twisted, coiled around the cathedra. It was all tension, its inhuman eyes trained on me, waiting for its master’s raised arms to drop. And they did.
I did not watch the beast strike me, I was unable to pull my attention from the mismatched emerald and violet eyes of the faerie. When the fangs pierced the flesh of my thigh I did not feel pain as I expected. No, instead I heard Mother speak to me. As I fell to the earth, enrobed by that rapturous voice, I noticed how the green of the serpent’s eyes mirrored one of the faerie’s. It was such a magnificent shade.
The warmth of Mother’s love began radiating outward from my thigh, washing over me to the rhythm of my beating heart. My, how wonderful that shade of green was, it was almost all I could see now, consuming my vision. Blades of grass wrapped themselves around me, and I had the sudden feeling that this was what it must’ve felt like in the womb.
It was then that I realized how tired I was, how tired I’d always been. I knew that if I went to sleep now I would awake invigorated like never before, ready to fight for a greater purpose. So I closed my eyes.
The last thing I saw was the faerie’s smiling face.
Surrounded by green.
I finally came up with a name and story for my character Ailean!
Ailean is a name of Celtic origin, meaning rock or noble, and is used for both boys and girls, so I'm really lucky that a name existed that fulfilled every facet of my character.
Also I took the advice that @nesokaiyoh gave me, surrounded myself by awesome art, and I have a composition I'm much happier with that I'm almost ready to share. It's fairly simple, but evokes the emotions I'm going for, and I think I can execute it pretty well.
I just hope I can finish it in time, because I'm damn slow at painting.
Here's my progress on the new composition! There's obviously a lot to add and fix before I really start rendering, especially in the environment, but I wanted to put out an update.
I'm glad you got back into it again! It's easy to lose sight of what you want, or get discouraged when something doesn't go right, or you even mess up a little. But that's okay, because it's the carrying on and putting time into figuring out why that certain thing went wrong or how you can improve this or that better that makes a great artist. You have my respect for challenging that discouragement 
@nesokaiyoh Thank you so much for your advice and encouragement, it really helps to hear stuff like this especially since you obviously know what you're talking about!
Here's my progress from my first day of rendering! I can tell I'm getting better because of the nature of the competition, and that's exactly what I was hoping would come from this, so it's exciting!
I'm really glad you're getting back into it, hearing how excited you are about your work makes it an inspiration to others, I'm hoping for the best out of your piece
Another rendering update. The lighting on the pauldron looks wrong, and there are a few areas I haven't touched, not to mention all the polishing left but I'm liking the direction I've gone in, and I think I got the mood right. This may be my last post before the final, we'll see how quickly I can get it done.
Here's my final illustration of Ailean the Evangel
