Sankam

Thanks for the critique! To address your questions:

1) I am constantly tweaking character proportions. I think that in this particular picture I pushed her face too cute. If I drew it again I'd make her eyes smaller and give her less forehead. Her ears have also been getting out of control lately.

2) I was not attempting to convey the same emotion in the second picture as in the first. The original one was meant to be candid, as if she was photographed talking to someone; the current one is posed, as if she was asked to smile for the camera. Her personality has changed very little; but the posed picture captures less of it than the candid one. (This is because I drew it very quickly.)

3) The main factor in the changes is visual appeal. Both versions are about 3 and a half heads tall, but on the original drawing the head, torso, and hips are all about the same size, which is visually uninteresting. On the current version her head is biggest, her torso is smallest, and her hips are in between. A larger head in proportion to the body is cuter and makes her seem shorter. A small torso and big hips emphasizes both that she is an adult and not a little girl, and also that she is maybe a little out of shape from a sedentary lifestyle.

The original head design is just incorrect. The face takes up too much of the head-- her eyes are set too high and there is not enough forehead. On the current design I have dropped the eyeline way down, which makes her muzzle smaller and cuter, and pushes her cheeks closer to her eyes, making it easier to draw expressions. Her eyes are bigger and more expressive. The forehead is larger, which makes her look younger and cuter.

My current style of drawing her overshoots the ideal Elise in some aspects, and this drawing in particular I think is pushed too cute. But the changes work well for the comic, where a more cartoony graphic style makes the character both easier to read and faster to draw. The sculpture has more realistic proportions, which I like better in a lot of ways. There's a balance to be struck that I have not yet achieved.

I like this a lot. Really cool composition, awesome mechanical design, nice and loose without feeling sloppy, the color is good, the lighting is good, it feels like daylight.

The one criticism I have is focus. If Krystal is the subject, I think she blends in too much. The greatest value contrast in the piece is right at her face, which is good, but her body is kind of lost since it is blue on blue, modeled relatively flat, and close in value to the sky. I like how you threw a bit of green into the sky so you have some color contrast, but I feel like it needs a little something more. Maybe kick up the saturation on the fur, or some highlights or reflected light to get the edges to pop more against the sky.

Thanks Fyuvix!

The idea was that she is listening to the singer hamming it up to the crowd between sets, so yeah, it's intended to be a quiet moment in a chaotic environment. If I finish it up I am going to add the drumsticks sticking up from behind the kit so that you can see she's holding both in one hand and not ready to drum.

I know this gallery is super defunct, but you must know that this is the best MLP comic ever written.

I like that you have considered the underlying anatomy.  Her shoulders move particularly nicely here.