The Sea Witch

Here's a piece I redid for my children's illustration portfolio.

It was originally a realistic digital painting done way back in 2011. It was mainly to prove to myself that I could create something dark and scary, as with almost everything we were supposed to do at uni. I'm not really a dark and scary person, so I always struggled with that a bit, and wanted to see if I could create something scary off my own bat, a couple of years after I left uni. 

Here's the original. There's no place in my portfolio for anything like this now, so I took the concept and turned it into a children's illustration. I quite like redoing old pieces, if I think the concept is strong enough. It lets me see how much I've progressed, and also gives me a chance to fix all those little things that end up bothering me after I've finished a piece. 

Of course, turning it into a children's illustration meant that I no longer had to make it super-scary, which is much more my cup of tea. =P 

Here's a progress animation:

What do you think? Which version do you prefer?

Adobe Photoshop CC2016 on a Wacom Cintiq Companion 2. About 12-15 hours, I think.