Oyo Seido Final

I had a hard time letting go of this piece because something about it just seemed wrong to me.  When I put it up on the regular message boards for feedback there wasn't much comment, and the critiques I did get stressed stuff that I a) didn't really feel were the problem or b) entailed changing so much of the piece that I might as well start afresh.  Some critiques I got said there needed to be more detail in the foliage, and that the straight on perspective is kind of boring.  While more detail might help somewhat, I think that just adding more detail wouldn't solve the main problem, which is that the artwork is just a little...dull.  It's functional and practical but not really interesting . A change in the perspective might fix that, but again that would mean starting from scratch, so I might as well just devote myself to a new piece if that's the case.  As a last resort to make things a little more interesting I added a forest mouse on the steps of the temple, looking for some scraps in the offering bowl.  While realistically you probably wouldn't even notice the mouse if this was actually made into a card, I feel like adding that one elements makes the piece as a while just a little bit more interesting.

I did also experiment a little bit with making this a night time scene and inserting some fireflies for instant effect.  It did look much more interesting this way, but if I were to do it properly I'd have to go back to the beginning of coloring the piece, and I'm pretty much sick of this piece already!  Time to move on to the last artwork, which will be another environment piece.