*takes a deep breath* I admit I am slightly scared to have this torn to pieces, but there's no other way to improve.
Anyway, this is my first ever try at a mockup and it's been great fun, only, I failed with the characters. I'm not really looking for critique on the top part, but those characters down there, they really bug me. I was going for a chibi anime sort of thing, but they just look creepy and awkward.
I'm obviously having a lot of trouble with the hands (and thus arms), so it'd be great if someone could tell me how to fix that (so far people only agreed they need to be fixed, but no one can quite explain how).
And then there's the other things of course like eyes, mouth, depth, the shading of the clothes, the light coming from the magic, etc. I -know- what's wrong, I just don't know what to do about it?
Right, also, the stupid swirls at the bottom are actually the character's names and they're supposed to be a mystery. Just saying, because they've been mistaken for terrible clouds.
Lets' see, what else. I'm also not too happy with the potion bottles and the shading on the kraken, the dithery stuff on the clouds and the big visible difference between the light and dark blue in the dark part of the sky.
I've evidently spent a lot of time on this already, but I've run out of solutions to my problems.
Ok, that should be enough explanation.
edit: and it's not my secret santa ^^; it for the competition thingie by Shonegold at dA, because I needed some distraction anyways.