Gotta Have a Hook Challenge pt4 (the done-en-ing)

I think this will be the final. I played with the palette some and added subtle details and changes to fine tune it. I feel like I've gone about as far as I can with it before I overcook the pasta. Unless you have any other ideas I think I'm calling it done. As DaVinci said, art is never finished, only abandoned.

Gotta Have a Hook Challenge pt3 (Color WIP)

Here we are with some slight tweaks to color balance, dust, and dwarf details. I may dial down the overall saturation and shift the palette back to the more pinkish fleshy hue overall. The color harmony happening in this one is almost too perfect and a bit contrived. The previous version actually appealed to me a bit more. I may push it back toward that direction while keeping the other small structural changes I made in this latest version. 

Gotta Have a Hook Challenge pt2 (Color WIP)

Here is what I have so far. I'm mainly posting this to get some feedback. There is some fairly major stuff I feel I need to address but for the sake of objectivity, I don't want to influence any feedback I may get by stating my opinions. Thanks for taking a look.

Cheers,

-Ray

Gotta Have a Hook Challenge

Hi all, ol' Duder's got a lot of irons in the fire. Recently I've been participating in an open art challenge put on by WotC art director Jon Schindehette on his blog Art Order. It's been a lot of hard work and a lot of fun. Here is the assignment brief:

Description

Setting - A cavern

Characters - A Male Dwarf Fighter and a Hook Horror

Scene - The dwarf has just delivered a mighty smack to the hook horror and knocked it backward through a stalagmite and/or stalactite.

Details: The dwarf is wearing heavy scale mail armor. Wielding a warhammer and a heavy shield.

These are the thumbnails I started with: I chose number 3 as it felt the most dynamic and engaging to me: 

Here is the B/W drawing and value study that will serve as the foundation to the final painting:

 Next will be the final color phase coming up in the next couple of weeks.