Horizon Zero Bun

This is my first critique, so I'll try to make it as helpful as I can.

Now at first, I want to adress the effect this picture had on me. It blew me away on first sight! The reason is because of the strong light which is facing the viewer.

What I like most is the way the light impacts the scene. How it light just spreads on the grass like a carpet, that is really effective. The composition is also pretty well realised. The characters are positioned in the frame in a way that makes the picture less symmetrical (which is a plus in my opinion but different people like different things there). Actually, you may have intuitively respected the rule of thirds with the hand on the bow being the focus of the image. But I don't really know much about that either, as I am more of an intuitive person myself regarding composition.

Another clear plus are the colors, they look breathtaking! Even though the palette is not really close to the game, but the palette is mostly continuous, with a few exeptions, such as the violet eyes of Judy or the blue appendages on the bow. Making these less saturated would propably complement the overall palette of the picture, but put less of an emphasis on these specific elements. I just want to point it out for consideration.

Now, technically, you have still a lot of room for improvement, especially regarding the use of textured brushed. Try to find clean brushes to block in larger chunks of the picture first before you add any details with fancy brushes!
It's much more comfortable to have a basis first, which you can add upon with more nuances. For example, the parts of the grass that are in shadow should be blocked in with a darker, less saturated tone first before adding the grass. I might be wrong there, but it looks like you put in bright tones there and added darker values (with the grass) on top, but its actually a lot more useful to do it the other way around!
The trees suffer from the same problem. Although you seem to have used a simple brush to do these first. Same goes for Judy's clothes. Try to add the texture with brighter values after you indicated the form with darker values.

Now, what makes the light so effective is propably the use of color dodge as a layer- or brush mode, which I always like. Not using this can often result in the image looking too flat, which is definitely not the case here. Thats pretty good for a beginner! BUT try not to overuse it that makes it look more fake. Also, Color dodge (or Hard Light, for that matter) doesn't work on black. Don't ask me why. The glowing of the eye of the robot could have a much more profound effect if the ring shape in it wasn't purely black! Now it feels a bit like the glowing is coming from behind the robot's head, which is confusing. Glowing is also more effective if the actual red comes from the glowing itself. If you look at neon signs (or light sabers actually) you'll see that the color is much brighter in the source itself, and the actual red is coming from the glowing itself. (like this: sta.sh/02g36gbdcwq0)

And finally, it may seem like I am pointing out more negatives than positives here, but I would like to point out (as Timo already did) that you have improved SIGNIFICANTLY since your last submissions. You definitely are improving pretty fast, so just keep going!

So anyways, this is propably less of a critique than a compilation of tips for you to maybe improve? Hope it helps <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/b/b…" width="15" height="15" alt="" data-embed-type="emoticon" data-embed-id="366" title=" (Big Grin)"/>