YAY! I love seeing traditional artwork. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing digital work, but its always refreshing to see people still like using stuff on paper! I can't even remember the last time I sat down to do something on paper... kind of a shame really. Anyhow, this is great! I have a love of the shapes of skulls, I don't know why, such a cool looking object. You pulled this off great, nice use of shade, believable form, and lovely colors around the edges. Not much negative can be said about this, great work! Keep it up and thanks for sharing!

Strong, great composition on where everything is laid out. You got a great feel for the "Rule of Thirds."

It leads the eye. The skull is dominant in the frame because the eye is lead almost DIRECTLY to the bleached skull amid all of these vibrant water colors. What immediately becomes apparent is the misshapened top of the skull. In my personal opinion, I think the skull would work better if it were more rounded off.

What happens instead is, from the stage-right eye, it goes straight up (like it should) but keeps going and then it elbows in a sort of acute angle to flatten out the top. To take into consideration the black line that outside of the stage-left eye, running up and detailing the temple, provides dimensions on where the front of the face begins and ends, it makes it appear that this particular skull has a nob at a high, frontal part of its skull...and it just looks weird.

With the proportions that you've given us with the eyes, nose, mouth and chin of the skull...it IS BELIEVABLE that the top of the skull could END at that point, where it elbows out, creating the nob...what I think is making it look askew is the angle that's creating the top of the skull, facing the left of the frame...makes it look like he's got a flat head!

You'll note that there's a thin line of purple, from the background, that runs along the top of that surface I'm talking about. I'm willing to wager that if you filled in all of that white, and extended the skulls cranial dimensions out to the two distant tree things in the background? The lower tree would be completely consumed, and as long as the top of the skull is slightly curved, that would look a little more correct.

To counter that! That skull's face is goddamned impressive. To the missing teeth on the side...it provides details that hint at a greater story, and I'm an avid fan to those kinds of details because it's stimulating to the imagination.

The water colors themselves help add to the mood. I'm not exactly a fan of the line of orange on the left side though...it doesn't do anything for me personally, and there's not enough of it to really be bothered with....that whole thing of orange could've easily just been more purple, and that would've been fine. You would have had a consistent cool-color theme going on, and that could lend with the gloomy dark plantlife imagery, and the skull to help entice some grimmer moods.

Intentional or not, I particularly enjoy the hidden face within the blue water color. We can see her profile, facing right, nose inches away from the mid-right border, her eye right below the lowest major branch of the tree. Its a nice touch!

Finally there's the graphite trees. They lend a bit of necessary atmosphere to piece, but could use some expanding upon. For instance, we see no plantlife rooted, no real idea of horizon or background besides neat colors. Even if it were just a nice, brushy, horizontal line implying solid ground, that would've helped a bit....even if it didn't fully commit to the right border. (but, I guess if you did that, it would compromise the hidden face, so idk wtf I'm talkin' about)

You had the right idea for adding additional graphite scenery in the top left...but I begin to wonder what came first...the plants or the skulls? Or was it JUST graphite? Because I'm beginning to feel like as you were fleshing out the skull's dimensions, you cut it in a little short so you didn't compromise those top left background trees...hence the weird flat top, am I wrong?

Regardless, down to every detail, this is some COOL art, dude. In the future, take greater detail in the pre-composition concept stage. Make it so your filesize is larger, your palette larger, so you can stretch and breathe more detail into every piece. Make no mistake: this is STILL good...but its an even better platform to launch upon higher.

Voted 5! Keep up the awesome artwork man.

I like that effect. I find it kinda tasteful.