Fun and creative. More detail regarding the development of the shark in the SBS would be nice IMO and, notwithstanding the jellyfish source pic, having all of the jellyfish upside down seems odd.

Fun, except the wavy stripes stand out more than the boat and (especially) the text. (Try greater contrast for the latter two elements.)

Extremely creative and fun! Her strong shadow on the wall might suggest a bit more bang shadow on her forehead, chin shadow on her neck, and pearls shadow on her neck and the wall. A string connecting the pearls might be nice, as well. I would be tempted to crop the image just below the pearls as that portion is kind of creepy IMO.

I really like the intense saturation. Shadow on the sun itself is odd, and I think I would make the sky brighter than the water. More disturbing is the fact that the foreground dock and cattails have a vanishing point well below the horizon. The cattails also appear to be lit from the front when the sun is in the back.

Very fun shoe choice. While converting a shoe into a home (a la the Old Woman who lived in a shoe) might not be that original, this home is very charming and realistic. However, I think the figures, among other elements, could cast stronger shadows plus the shoe could have greater contrast so it is even more clearly the focal point as required by the contest.

Very cute, but the focus is the meercats and not the shoe as required by this contest.

Very fun and magical, but the shoe needs to stand out more IMO to be the focal point as required by this contest.

Amusing idea, but I find it a bit hard to discern the shoe let alone declare it the focal point as required by the contest.

Very interesting, but I don't see the shoe as the focal point as required by the contest theme.

Very cool! The two magenta anemone-like things stand out too much, IMO, plus the two fish seem like perfect clones (which they are!). Shifting the eye of one of the fish would be more realistic.

Nice result, although the intense canvas texture is too hokey (as CMYK46 noted) and Orlando Bloom is unrecognizable, at least to me.

The retention of the unadulterated third figure highlights both the un-painterly aspects of the first two figures and the incomplete (but already incoherent) overall concept.

The brightness/saturation of the face gives it the pasted-on, mask-like look that MossyB noted. [Personally, I don't find casting Bette Davis as Queen Elizabeth particularly innovative.]

Unlike the original painting, Angelina's viewer's-left-side of her face is in shadow so the lack of shadow on her wimple is off-putting.

The black lightening bolt is still the darkest, least noisy element in the image and thus does not seem part of the painting. More problematic is that a Renaissance Lady Gaga would change not only her hair but also her clothes. Wearing male military attire, for example, would no doubt have seemed outrageous at the time.

Clearly much hotter than the original (but I would like to think the much-younger me was hotter, too ). The turban's shadow upon his head is too weak, however—see original. Random thought: retaining Beck's cheek scratch might add an interesting edge to a formal Renaissance portrait and provide tension with the red turban. An SBS would be nice, too.

Very cute idea. The skin tones look OK to me (now?). However, I think even more Bieber hair-do would be good along with much darker hair on Selena.

Oops, my bad!

Very well done overall. The highlights on her nose and forehead are too intense, i.e., visible, however. I think tilting her head ever so slightly to the right to match the source painting might add a subtle coyness more consistent with the demure notion of womanhood in the Renaissance.

Great blending, but the difference in noise between the face and the clothes and hand is disconcerting.

Very clever concept well executed aside from the Danny Devito element. As CMYK46 noted, the baby's hairline is all wrong for Danny Devito although the baby's size does seem spot on. More fundamentally: what does Danny Devito have to do with Madonna? Pop music is WAY outside my area of expertise, but from what I've seen in surfing the 'Net, making the baby Lady Gaga, for example, might be more compelling commentary.

Step 1 of the SBS is described as "parts used from the image" but that source image is never provided, let alone shown to be an acceptable source for use on PXLEyes.

As lchappell noted, the mandolin and lace table cloth are very creative creations.

I think the shadows need refinement, however. The apple half should cast more shadow on the fruit that should cast more shadow on the mandolin that should cast more shadow on the wall. Furthermore, a shadow should be very intense (just one or two pixels wide) immediately under an object to ground it so it doesn't appear to be floating above the surface it's sitting upon. As the shadow extends away from the object, the shadow should be a gradient because ambient light weakens the shadow the farther away it gets from the object.

I would explore moving the painting northwest so it goes outside the frame of the image and has a greater overlap with the mandolin. Centering a table under the picture would also seem a more natural decorating choice. (An alternative would be to take the painting off the wall and rest it on the table.)

Also, applying the Rule of Thirds to the composition might be a tad more compelling. (BTW the SBS is not very revealing.)

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

Very instructive SBS.

Partially submerged is a fun idea. But the non-solid/non-opaque ceiling arch is odd. And the soffit/cove-ceiling thing on the near right side not matched on the left side is weird that might best be solved by eliminating it from either side both near and far.

There are indeed a lot of orange fairies here. What I like about this one is that she is bright/saturated rather than muted/dreamy which then provides a dramatic contrast with the black in the background. (I would really like to see an SBS as I think your recolored version of the model is better than the source—which however is nicely very white so very amenable to recoloring.)

Much improved except the angle of the tree shadow (good) is not matched by the angle of the cart shadow.

Dramatic. The saturation/brightness of the flame is much too weak, however. (It's wimpier than that dragon's breast and back!) The black on the the lower dragon makes it look fake when the bottom of the floating island has nothing anywhere near that black.

Interesting, but the central thing is too flat and indiscernable. Actually, I'm not sure why the central thing is necessary. (Delete the central thing and move the boy slightly in front of the girl.) Also, the trees in the background have as much depth as a painted flat in a high-school musical. So many flares is distracting IMO.

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.

The water room contrasting with the land view through the French door is a nice touch. The white and red thing with the weird perspective on the back wall is discombobulating, however, not to mention the odd right wall. The stool seems to be lit from the lower center but that's not evident from its shadows.

Dramatic and surreal. Hardly seems like 2:50 p.m., but maybe the clock is broken. The hay bales are a distraction IMO. The interior objects should cast more shadow. (The interior illumination apparently comes over the viewer's right shoulder.)

Appealing orange scene. The extremely low sun on the horizon would seem to suggest much longer shadows, however, to the extent that the wagon should be just to the right side of the tree's shadow. And certainly the bed of the wagon would be shaded. (More shadows would add more drama. Also, with the low sun, I would experiment with slightly less saturation of the ground.)

The highlights are orange and the highlights dominate the image, so it's orange enough for me. Reshaping the butterfly wings into something more dramatic was inspired. I'm not sure what happened in Step 4 of the SBS, but she started looking at her thumb instead of the butterfly which drastically minimizes the overall impact.

Interesting. More yellow than orange to my eye, however. The twin monumental St. Stephen sculptures make the small, unexpectedly unstaffed boat (surprisingly white in the very yellow light BTW) boat seem out of place. Actually, the boat seems oversized for the setting. With all the intense background light, the light on the front side of the statues seems odd.

The night exterior with the day interior is genius. The sconces are a creative way to convey greater solidity to the side walls, but the light they emit is apparently irrelevant to the illumination of the room. (They shine light up while their solid bases would cast shadows down.)

Quite dramatic. The reflections seem to be more like shadows [totally different from reflections], however. And the clock face is opaque, not transparent as its 'reflection' would suggest. Not clear where the star sparkles are coming from or why they don't reflect in the water.

Dramatic source pic made more compelling by reducing the color depth. Bravo!

I like it, too, except the start pic appears to be 95% of the way to the end result. And it's odd how the right-side desk top extends much farther back than the left-side desk top.

A little bland, perhaps. Increasing the saturation might give the bottle more impact.

Great start pic with great cropping. Very compelling.

Interesting, but I think more contrast or saturation would be more compelling/add more drama.

Fun image. Narrow palette range is kind of blah, however. More contrast or saturation might increase the impact.

Surprisingly blah to me. Nice Rule of Thirds composition but I think the source pic needs more contrast so the flower stands out more from the background and then packs more punch when you reduce the color depth.

Interesting start pic (that might benefit from greater contrast). The color depth is nicely shallow, but it doesn't accentuate the feel of a graveyard IMO. The negative of this might be more compelling. Making the name on the foreground gravestone visible could add drama.

Too many colors for the theme IMO and, to be honest, the image is not particularly compelling in any event. I come back to my observation (rephrased) that this theme is about accentuating already-dramatic images.

I'm afraid I'm not sure what the 'right place' for Toilet Man is so it's hard to appreciate that this 'wrong place' is especially disconcerting/amusing. His right [our left] foot seems to be floating slightly above the ground (weakish shadow, no grass blades in front of shoe).

The dumpster size looks OK to me. I guess 'anger' is a variation on the more traditional deadly sin of 'wrath.' I think more shadows/less light would add more drama, especially when the guy being hit doesn't seem to be offering much defense.