Good morning folks! I know the deadline isn't until later tonight for the assignments, but I'm disappearing this evening for the weekend and Arles is taking over for a couple of weeks so I wanted to take the opportunity now and just say a massive THANK YOU to you all for participating so far. The entries you guys are posting are awesome and I'm loving the creativity!
Anyway, I would also like to take this chance to post a couple of my own comments regarding what's been posted so far:
1. Ratha
Really nice 2D lair in the sprite-game style! I love how your avatar is evolving and the pattern in the portal. How did you make the pattern? Is that a paint-bucket pattern or a brush? Nice use of detail too on the items and the portal surround. The only suggestion I might have is to watch your scale. I know your avatar can float, but that desk seems pretty big in comparison to him, at least to me. That's a really minor detail though, otherwise it looks great!
2. GathersIngredients
I really do love the donkey! This is also really nice - you've kept the colours simple, but warm and I really like how you've used the gradient brush and the clouds to give a bit of depth to your image. The artwork is simple, but it is perfectly clear exactly what everything is supposed to be. If this was the opening scene for a game, I'd say it's pretty spot on. It's got enough detail to give your players options, but it's simple enough that they won't be investigating every single stray pixel on the offchance it's important. The only suggestion I might make is that it's a little unclear what the gradient behind the hut is representing. To me it looks a bit like a dust-storm because it's darkest in the centre, but you might want to add some extra spin-lines to make that clearer. If it's a sunset, you need to reverse the direction of the gradient so that the centre is the lightest. Other than that it looks awesome
3. madmartin
Another great freestyle drawing! I love the ship, and again it's nice and simple. The positioning of your sprite on the far left makes the image feel a bit unbalanced to me, and it feels like there should be something on the ship's deck. From a game perspective though this is great if you intend to have the players collect loot and fill the ship with cool stuff, because they'll look at the picture and immediately think 'huh, that boat looks empty, I'd better fill it with things'.
4. Prometheus
There is beautiful use of colour and brush-style in this image to really give a feeling of quiet, solitude and other-worldliness. Without the torches, this would be quite a forboding sort of location, but the fire and sunbeams make it feel safe. Again, very simple style, but conveys the atmosphere very well. The only thing I might suggest is to try and lighten the pool and rocks a little. If they're being lit by the light-beams from above I might expect them to be a bit lighter than they are. You could also try some basic shading on the rocks - if you choose a darker shade of grey and then colour in approximately the lower half of each rock you might help emphasise the illumination a bit. Similarly to give that feel for the torches, you could create a new layer & paint it completely black. Drop the opacity to something that still allows the background to be dark but visible then use the eraser (with opacity around 10-20%) to paint circles around the torches. This will remove the darkness from around the flames and will make them appear brighter than the rest of the image. I did something similar in this image from the sign-ups:
5. LAYF
Another great sprite-style image (though we'd expect nothing less from you!). I love the simplicity and the marketing! I particularly like how you're able to combine simplicity with detail in your images to really make each object significant, and I really like the use of shading on your seals. This kind of style is great for games which may involve more of an investigative aspect - there's loads for the players to look at and pay attention to, and if you included a time limit you could really stress them out! My only criticism is that you've left a lot of blank space in the upper right area. Perhaps having your portals as a single row, or 2x2 grid could fill the space up a bit more?
My favourite thing is the evil watercooler though. He looks like he'd bite the hand off anyone who tried to get a drink
6. Nerre
Not a great deal going on in this setting, which makes the treasure pile look a bit more like a fancy item or piece of scenery than the entire scene. However, it is a beautiful piece of artwork, and one of the best of the bunch this week! The shading is used brilliantly to give depth to the image and the detail is beautiful. I just wish there was a little bit more in this picture (a ground layer, or maybe a light source to explain the shadows).
7. whirdcheese
Very nice! I love your use of perspective in the throne room and the shading on the carpet to highlight the step. I also like that you haven't used a black outline anywhere in the image except on your sprite which I think helps make it appear more important. The only criticism I have is that the perspective view seems to stop at the door. Giving your guards a little bit of floor space to stand on might just have been enough to make them appear part of your 3D scene. As they are they look a little 2D to me.
8. BeanDip
This is hilarious and I love the concept!
All the happy little contradictions are lovely and while your style is quite simple, it again has detail where it's important (the dead grass under your avatar's feet for example) and it's obvious immediately what everything is supposed to be. I would quite like to see some bunny bodies attached to the skulls for completeness, but again, if you started a game like this in this style, right now, I have no doubt you would get a LOT of players having a LOT of fun! Because frankly, who doesn't want to play a game as death-with-ponytails?
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I'm really enjoying seeing what you guys are putting up here and I hope you don't mind my criticisms - they're intended to be helpful! If you guys have any comments of your own to add, please feel free, but let's keep it constructive!
And my own dragons are here. The hatched ones like the clicks! 
