Good job!
Just one suggestion: Step 10 looks better without the white streak across the balloon. GL author!

Thanks CMYK! I'll have some more work on it, I wanted some cloud stripes in front of the balloon to give the scene some more deepness, I guess it needs some more work to make it clear but subtile.

Very creative literal take on the theme (which would be emphasized if the title were "World Balloon". I like the calm, restful mood evoked by the muted color palette.

While greater depth is a good objective as a general rule, I like the uncluttered simplicity of Step 10 which I think already shows a lot of depth starting with the front-plane clouds in the lower right corner and then going diagonally back to the balloon floating over the cloud "plain" in front of the cloud "mountains" in front of Saturn in the far distance.

It's the best description I could ever hear about this scene. Thank you so much! I'll take off the front layer of clouds.

Really nice take on this theme. Like how you distorted the earth image to match the shape of the actual balloon. I'd like this even more I think if Saturn wasn't monochrome. This works too...though!

EDIT: Author your explanation makes perfect sense. Thanks for sharing. I like the way it is now too. Upon looking again...I think the way it is now lends more of an attraction...because it ISN'T typical. Nice job!

Thanks for your comment pixelkid, most of what we do as artists is in certain way a recreation of visual fantasies that are part of our self made inner world. This goes for the monochromatic vision of saturn: I've always been seduced by the idea of how would it look to have a big exotic planet near earth, and the thing is that actually in daylight it would probably look very similar to what I did in my composition, due to the color filtering of our blue atmosphere.

Yes, this is more about visual poetry than about optical realism... Thanks again!

Very pretty scene

Thxs!!!

nice one..good luck

Thanks everyone for your votes!!!

Congrats for 2nd

Congrats!