Naught But a Ghost Draw This Again Meme

It's a weird combination of liking particular things from each piece. For example, I like the balance of subjects filling in the image in the later piece than the earlier one, and that the fog in the first image looks much more appealing than the lined fog in the later picture. But I'll skip to the meaty bit here.

VISION: The first image is hauntingly beautiful, especially with the eerie fog in the foreground and the background. The fading of the stars behind the clouds is an awesome effect, and adds to the somber atmosphere of the image.

The second image was much better at balancing; there was less empty space and more stars to fill the sky that wasn't occupied. There's also a more expressive face on Lyra (squinted eyes and ears folded back), which gives some emotion for the viewer to chew on.

ORIGINALITY: Because it's fanart, I can't give points in originality for either image. The readers of Background Pony would certainly think it's fitting, however.

TECHNIQUE: In the first image, a handful of the stars look like lines rather than normal stars, and don't seem to have any sort of rhyme or reason to them, which threw me off a bit. However, they varied in brightness, even in clear areas of the sky, which is a nice touch of realism. The moon also looked off, in that it's outline is very sharp against the sky; almost unrealistically sharp. A softer glow would work better. Also, there seems to be a lot of empty sky between Lyra and the moon. If there were more stars and fog to cover that area, it would balance the image well. However, I liked the semi-impressionistic shading you had on Lyra; contrasting, but somehow still gradual.

The second image is much more impressionistic in terms of leaving strokes visible, although it doesn't add anything for me. For example, the shading on the legs was okay, but the added lines crossing over Lyra's legs seem unnecessary; shading it darker would be fine. Also, the cross-hatching fog doesn't seem to work as well as the gradual, air-brush sort of fog; it takes away from the image in that it took me a couple of seconds to figure out what was blocking the view of the moon in the background. The mountains look great, though; the soft outlines and varying shades fit very well in the whole of the image.

IMPACT: Both images' messages are very strong, with the colors chosen, the posing of the character and the background that she is placed in. It's a powerful gravitas full of sorrow and quiet despair.

Not bad; just a little room for improvement.