A turtle

[ep]

Comment/Ideas for the background and extending it, right now I'm thinking of some sort of coral reef but I don't know if I will be able to pull it off.

[pkmays]

The turtle shell needs more contrast. It's very difficult to see where the segments in the shell  are.

Coral reef sounds good. Start with some subtle dark blues and block in the shapes, then add brighter shades to pull out the shapes.

[ep]

I actually changed the distinctions in the shell to less because of a couple of turtles i have seen and some images i looked up on line.  I had a couple where it was darker but it really didn't look natural, probably just a bad color choice on my part, or distortion from my monitor.