Quinto Hoover mostly small press stuff, Richard Kane Ferguson (dunno if he did any comics though)...Both of have done art for assorted CCGs for a fact...Humberto Ramos is another one of my faves but his stuff is very stylized...

Ok...Fairly heavy edit mostly working in pkmay's suggested lines as the tail lines he put up make a lot more sense by way of readability...I'm still tweaking the tail to a point that I like and trying to AA to 50% grey...
Also took the suggested tonal changes from the color edit as well...It still needs a lot of work but I'm definitely feeling better about the direction it's heading in...Thanks again y'all...

Thank you both very much...
The edit definitely cleared up some things that were giving me fits...I'll see about tossing a progrss piece up as soon as I can get the suggestions implemented...
Thanks again...

@Adarias: I'm assuming you're referring to my (admittedly) rather bad attempt at a secondary light source to the right with the teal colors?
I can only chalk that up to being an (obviously) failed experiment...I'll have to fiddle with it more, via contour blending and such thus giving it the same kind of attention that I heaped on the primary light source...I think I can see a few ways to implement such a critter...

In regards to my use of techniques, in all honesty I poke around at a piece until I find what works to my eye...I can be completely honest when I say that I only really understand AA well and only have a moderately passable artistic talent considering the regulars around here...I throw things up here or at PJ and wait to see what more trained eyes have to say about the matter...

At this point I'm at something of a loss as to where to direct the piece next, and torn between scrapping everything save the torso, sword/spear, and the basic shape of the tail and starting over OR tossing the whole thing into my scrap bin and starting a piece using what I actually understand...

Given that this has stirred up a fairly serious hornet's nest I'm not sure that I should be posting any continuance of this piece here, in spite of the fact that if I want to actually learn something when all of this is said and done this is the best place for it. Considering it's basic premise and my desire not to have to wade through a dozen or so posts bashing the "technique" that is the basis of the challenge to glean the kernels of actual critique and comments on the piece itself...I do appreciate the comments and criticism that the piece has received but I don't see how the current direction of the thread is going to help the piece come to a place that isn't going to offend anyone's sensibilities...

At this point I don't really care if this goes in for the challenge, or for that matter even qualifies for the challenge, I just want to improve the piece to the best of my abilities and maybe stretch my horizons and skills some...*shrugs*

Any rate thanks for staying tuned this long...If anyone wants to toss any C&C at the piece feel free...Thanks again to those who did add their two cents worth on the pic...