Great fantasy image.

Very well done! Great to see you again!

Fun! Refraction reflection is AWESOME!

Beautiful image. !!

Wonderful work

What a magical image.. definite fav in my gallery and personal collection. Truly inspiring.. Welcome back author

Amazing image. Love the sweet dragon and the spooky background. And don't know why the fav button does not work...

Aha, it worked

Congrats for your second place, Arca

Congratulations... beautiful image...!

WOOT WOOT

congrats! very nice water

Congrats! You just keep getting better!

Congrats Arca..,

Congrats for 2nd place.

congrats on your placement..

Thanks!!!

Congrats!!

Thanks!!!

The "pedestal" the dragon is sitting on lacks depth. Even in high res, the dragon appears to be floating, rather than sitting on it. The shading under the dragon is causing this, as you have dark shadows on his belly, but the pedestal is light colored. The diagonal light shining down from the upper LH corner compounds the inconsistency.

Edited! Decided I didn't need sleep and agreed with Mossy so did what I could ... it is now a vertical image and I have done work on the pedestal to make it stand out more ... part of the darkness on the bottom of the dragon is because is heating up
I don't have time to change the SBS but at least that way you can get an idea of what it looked like originally

Nice entry....Love the dragon... good luck. The colors are just beautiful...

Excellent work, terrific sbs too, nice to see the original in the sbs, I think the edited version is much better though... GL

fantastic work.., dragon is perfect and beautiful. good luck author..

I agree the edited version is much better, puts greater emphasis on the dragon which is so well constructed! Definitely check out the high res!

Fabulous piece of work. Your SBS is amazing too. Work on a dragon is master piece. Great drawing but after that fantastic usage of the source image. This goes instantly to my favorites...very very well done

awesome! lots of work on this one

Amazing!

OUTSTANDING! Can really tell this took quite a bit of time and coffee to put together. Good Luck author.

Thank you so much everyone!
I almost didn't submit this one as I was running out of time and, yes, you are right Rod it took a lot of coffee!
This was something I have had in mind for a long time (I played with drawing the dragon a while ago and gave up); when I saw the seeds on the bun I felt it was time to go for it asI thought they would work quite well for the scales!

That was awsome....congrtulations for second.....!

Congrats Arca, it is one of the best dragons ever made in Pxleyes

congrats...!

Congrats

Congrats on 2nd place!

Congrats... Nancie....

Congrats!!

great art! congrats

lovely ......

Wonderful job wings are beautiful along with everything else

Flawless.

Totally awesome with great composition (Rule of Thirds) and enviable complexity in construction. The little dragon is the weak point IMO. I wish the coolness of its tail extended to its body which seems more cartoon than realistic. Also, the dragon appears to be lit from the left while she is lit from the right.

Thanks for the suggestion Dan. I tried to make the dragon less cartoonish; added some texture to the wings, sharpened the whole dragon a bit and added the same glow as the tail (plus lighting on Libellule's face to match the glow). I also messed with the shading a bit but as her hand is not in shadow below the dragon I did not darken that portion of him, that was my reasoning for his lighting, with the glow added it is not so crucial now (I think). Hope you like the changes. Thanks again

Beautiful job, love the wings!

Lovely image, but the dragon is almost invisible.

Thanks, CMYK ... dragon is now enhanced a bit more. I didn't want him too strong as he is not really the focal point of the image but your suggestion had merit. Almost took him out completely as he seems to be causing a lot of trouble (which I guess is natural as Firetails are known for being mischievous little creatures)

The image was designed to be 16X20 and at that size you can see him quite clearly . Thanks again for the feedback.

I think the dragon is now distinct not distracting but still adds foreground drama.

Thanks Dan!

Absolutely gorgeous work, author! Love all that you did to the model, especially her face.

congrats

truely beautiful entry.. congrats on 2nd

Beautiful work....well done for 2nd

Thanks all so much for the vote, comments and favs!!!

Congrats..... beautiful image....

Never seen anything like that in Pxleyes. Very gorgeous and dynamic in both the pose and color. Even though the character looks painterly, still works quite well with the background. Lighting effect can be better, tho, if you work a bit more on the character like casting more highlight and shadow on the face (the face and hair are the two most flat parts) and costume. The hair can be more real if you combine brushes with different brightnesses. Very high mark from me!

excellent and beautiful.. as langstrum saidthe body parts ( hands, face and hair.) need more shading and highlighting... (it's all in your reference image). the else is FANTASTIC...... Highest marks and favorite from me ...

Fabulous work ! I must admit that its rather difficult to merge a cartoon with a normal background realistically but this one absolutely goes on very well. High marks from me !

Tried suggestions. Added highlights to hair and shading to face and hands, plus some more on the Kimono.

The hair was hard; it seems when I add highlights it starts to look like she was going gray! But I tried.

The face was a different problem. It is suppose to look like a mild version of Geisha (or Kabuki) make-up. That style of make-up is very flat as the whole face is painted white with cheeks and eyes quite red. It was a struggle with this one, how far to go with the Geisha look and still have her look natural. I did try to give it more depth but could not go too far without killing what little of that look she has.

Lamantine, I am not sure what you mean about the cartoon as the original image of the Geisha is a photo and I did not really do much painting ... mostly warped the fabric of her kimono ... but I sort of see what you mean???

Hope you like the changes! Thanks for the help!

woooo hoooooooo, this is sooo beautiful

I understand your problem with the face, but we can make the shadow even with the white object. You can achieve that by using a layer with multiply blending setting, then pick the color on her face and select the dark color on the color palette by go down to the right (on the curve from top left to the bottom right). You can draw the shadow on her face by soft, low opacity brush on that layer, it won't disturb anything.
Do you notice the light on the grasses, the sunlight is quite yellow, so you can do the same thing to the kimono and the face. If I were you, I will use a layer with Color blending mode and use the bright yellow color to paint the highlight on the parts which mostly expose to the sun light, so the character will pop out more from the scene.
About the hair, just the brighter brushes on the front side of the hair are needed, the hair can be dark behind her.
Great to see the quick update and the image now is much improved.

Nevermind, this work is just FANTASTIC

This is an amazing piece of art...great colors...great chopping....great SBS.....and of-course my favorite......Good luck Author!!

Just a fabulous work!! I really like that it looks 'painterly' - woulld make a gorgeous piece to frame and enjoy in a special room of one's home. I agree - IMO - don't change a thing!

Wow, really, I'm not even gonna enter now, this is simply amazing!!!!

this one becomes a very specially manipulated pic,...it has a master touch on it,.....yes just like langstrum said "never seen anything like that in Pxleyes,.......very very perfectly done,.....and I learned much from this pic,......
> langstrum ( so far I am still wonder why is it that your account name is langstrum hehehe), nice contributions I learned from what you informed on this entry......

Sublime !

WOW, fantastic work. I LOVE it beautifully done.

Jaw-drop...eye pop...SWEET !!

oooooow! love it beautiful work

Really fantastic work, great job

It's funny because I can feel that wind blowing on my face just looking at the image...
Very beautiful compo, moody and magical.

This is great Author leave it as is please.
Welcome to pxl,

2 words: HOLY COW!

I'm not sure what some of the complaints are here. This is just flat-out AMAZING stuff.
(ok those were extra words but I couldn't help myself)

Beautiful work! Love the colors and serenity of the image.

Thank you all for you wonderful comments!

Silver, I really loved the support and in particular those extra words!!!

I did want to say that I did not mind the complaints; I took more as critiques and suggestions. More constructive than negative. It never hurts to see things through other peoples eyes

That is one reason why I like these competition. It gives me feedback that I can't get anywhere else and (hopefully) will make me a better artist!

Not complaining about your comment, it was great. They have all been great!

I didn't have any complain here, the image itself got the high score from me, and more "wow" and compliments are not needed because many people will do that. However, no one's perfect and I just gave my opinion about what can be done better. I'm glad that author received my comments very positively, and if author is the good chopper, he/she will know which part of my comment is reasonable and helpful.
@Dekwid: langstrum came from Pippi Langstrumpf or Pippi Longstocking, a character from the Swedish children's book of Astrid Lindgren. She is very famous with her personality, in many countries. I just like her name when I listened to the song "Hey Pippi Langstrumpf" when I was a child (didn't even know that's girl's name) and I simplified Langstrumpf to Langstrum. I read the book later and in love with this character too, so I keep it as my nickname until now. Thank you for asking

WOW! It is a very beautiful work. Goes to my fav.

“Adversity is like a strong wind…it doesn’t just hold us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward, we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be."
Memoirs of a Geisha

Good Luck author.. great job

Driven - incredible quote, it gave me goose bumps! Not only that but I listened to the music from the movie while creating her. It was a huge part of the inspiration! Thank you for the comment and the beautiful quote. Hug

excellent and beautiful ,good luck

Very classy photomanipulation.

wonderful entry ........ this will go to the top 50 pxl entrys ...........

Simply perfect. Could say a lot more about it but i guess that's how I should simplify it.

Agree with all (positive) comments
GL (not that you really need it or so haha )

Oh my what a stunning peice of art
Amazing talent author, thanks for sharing this beautiful image with us

Mind blowing entry, perfect!!!

the onlything i can say
"WOW"
ure winner

Few days i am thinking what to say about these entry author...Because words like, "these is nice,good work,and similar" are to minimal for work like these...This work author is one of the best that i see in my PXLeyes existing time...I adore all segments of the creation...how u distort the sky,what u did with the kimono,painting her face,hair,color on the grass...Simply amazing...i could go on and on on these for hours...I want to say only one thing...Keep going with creating fabulous entry's like these...

beautiful work, author, love the sweeping lines and colors.

Congrants....beautiful entry

Congratulations!

Congrats Arca this is so beautiful, I'd like framed and hanging in my house

Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats,Congrats, i cannot describe how much i like these entry

Congratulations on your first place. very well deserved!

CONGRATS!! Well deserved

Lovely!! Congrats!!

Congratulations for a well deserved 1st place, really quite fantastic. Keep it up.

Nice work! Congrats.

Congrats... a master piece.. with a good score....

wow! spendid!

simply wao........... amazing....

cool work

looks great, love it

great job building the model -- high res is worth the look to really see the effert.

wonderful stuff..... and perfect use of source High marks and fav from me....

bravo, good luck!

wonderful use of the source and an excellent sbs well done

Fantastic work! Especially love the work on her eyes.

Beau travail !! I like it.

Wonderful just wonderful! I love the scenario love the "gingerbread" detail! There's a touch of Fritz Lang (Metropolis)here as well.

What everyone else said!

Really nicely done! Good luck!

Wonderful creation and the SBS is OUTSTANDING!!!!

Oh my wow! A LOT of work went into this one, I can tell. Very nicely done and very creative. Great SBS too

Very good entry.

Awesome SBS as always, and really cool art work = )

this is just mind blowing and explicit work

Very beautiful, amazing work!

Absolute winner...Perfect entry author...

great .........

Just fantastic. What an excellent use of source..

Congrats, Arca, awesome chop!!

Congrats for a well deserved first place. Lovely entry!

Very well done, congrats on first place!

Thank you all so much for the votes, wonderful comments and favs!

congrats on first place

Congratulations....great work.

Congratulations! Very well done

Congrats Arca, awesome work

Wow, wonderful, I though it was from Spaceranger, that's not your usual style, but still fantastic. Congrats Arca on your win and the high score!!!!

Congrats!! I love it!

well deserved 1st pace with a great score..... Congrats...

congrats!!

congrats!

Congrats Arc...Perfect work,one of my favorite favorites....well done

Congrats ! So amazing !!

I missed the contest, but saw this on the front page. Beautiful work! So much patience, so much detail. This is going into my favs. Congratulations on placing first!