Pink

This is based off a photo from a david jones or myer catalogue or something, hence the fashion look and generic-ness of it all. I really liked the striking colors in some of the photos so wanted to work with that a bit.

I added the gradient color because it was looking a bit scraggly... I didn't want to incorporate more levels of shading so thought it might help bring it together a bit. The actual dress is satin or something very shiny so the highlights and transitions were quite strong, and i think i captured some of that.

The hair looks a bit like snakes or worms, i think. But i didn't want to play too much and get it overworked. I quite like the overall palette (which, though inspired by the photo, is different because I used my eyes, didn't scan or anything or stay strictly to it).

Something

Just a quick photoshop thing. I decided to use a calligraphic brush and this came out. I have always liked low-contrast darks together... something cool about it when it works.
In 'real' life, the effects you get particularly at night are so beautiful, like driving home and seeing silhouettes against a dark, slightly blue sky.

This isn't meant to capture that, though it is a scape of some kind i guess.
I actually thought I was going to do an illustrative treatment of some fruit today.

Dime

I liked this when I was part way through it, but i must have overworked it or taken a wrong turn or something, because i'm just not very keen on the final. Of course when i say final, that's just when i stopped working, it's not what i would consider a finished piece.
I tried hiding a lot of the layers and looking at different compositions to see if i could work out which bit i don't like, but i think it's a combination of things and i'm not going to do anything more on it.
A dangerous step is always once i start incorporating photo/texture bits into a drawing-based illustration, so for example the coins in this one don't work, i think.

In any case, I learnt a few little things doing it, and had some fun with light sources (though i can't really self-critique to see which bits are wrong).