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[Concept:]

Tough choice, but here are my votes
Concept: JudasFM
Artistic execution: Daniel Thomas
Playability: Cassiebsg

Thank you for the compliments Amélie and Greenbeams. I had so much fun making this background.
These contest are a really great thing. It's so nice to see all these different styles, there is so much I can learn from the other entries.

Ok, I think this must be it.
[imgzoom]http://img14.deviantart.net/67c5/i/2015/139/d/c/mystic_shut_by_ykni-d8ty841.png[/imgzoom]

Yay, I love to draw trees. No bothering with difficult perspective stuff ^^ 

Now that looks creepy Great job on the lighting. I love that this some parts are really shady. The tub looks a lot better with the legs.

Still a bit cautious with the contrast but it looks much better. The thatch roof still needs more shading though Some shading on the back of the tree or highlights around the edge will look good as well I think.
A good way to check if there is enough contrast in your picture is to make it black and white. If that doesn't look flat it's ok, if it does it could do with more contrast.

I wondered what kind of look you where going for with the fence, new and crisp or old and weather-worn? If it's the latter than you could go with a more gray wood and some green mossy patches.

The wood grain looks pretty good to me. The fence has no volume however. With this horizon I would expect to see part of the top fence and either the left or right side, depending on the camera angle. Seems like the light is coming from the east, so you could add some shade in front or behind the fence, depending on where the light is exactly. Is that a haystack on the left? I would add a bit of shade on the left and bottom to give it some volume.

That looks great Lasca. As for tips on how to paint hair. I don't know what kind of program you are using to paint with. I do most of my work with Artrage, which let's me blend my paint on canvas. This helps getting lots of natural looking color variation with a single brushstroke. Corel painter can probably do the same, I'm not sure if there are other paint programs that can do this as well.
But that's my trick with the hair, start using dark colors and work toward lighter colors like SilverSpook said. Work wet in wet to get the rich variation in color.

[1st]

I thought about entering this competition but just couldn't come up with anything good. You guys truly amazed me with these creative and beautiful entries.
/e Takes a bow to all the artists.

1st 1
2nd 9
3rd 5

I found this image that might help with figuring out what's wrong with the left eye.




When I compare your portrait to the reference drawings in the picture above I think that there might be a bit too much face showing on the outside of the left eye.

I think you are very brave to draw a portrait without a reference picture, that is a very difficult thing to do. Can't wait to see it finished.

I tried to add a lightsource to your image Yitcomics. I agree with the previous comments that proper lighting can improve the atmosphere in your background. When you are adding light try to imagine where the source is. From there it is a bit like adding perspective The light will flow from your light source and it will be bright near the source and less bright and more diffuse further from the source. If the light hits a shiny object like metal or your washbasin it reflects so you can add a 'hard' reflection. When it hits a softer surface like the shower curtains you can add a softer reflection. With this type of pin light that I added some objects will not get any light at all. Be bold in your shadows, for instance behind the bathtub will be almost completely dark, the washbasin and mirror are completely in the spotlight (I forgot the reflection on inside of the mirror ><)

Well I hope this helps a bit with the lighting. Btw I love that little window high up the wall in the dark area, I would definitely try to escape through that window ... if only it wasn't that high up

Hi Lasca. That looks much better already. The main thing that is bothering me about the eyes are the eyelashes. It's always difficult to get them right I usually just add a line above the eye that's thin in the inner corner and get's wider towards the outer corner. From that line I draw a few lashes in the outer corner. On the bottom of the eye I draw two lines, a skin colored line against the eye and a darker line for the lashes against that first line. Because it's difficult to explain here is an example of what I mean.
To give the eyes some depth you could add some shade just below the top eyelid and add some bright shade of brown in the iris.
The shape of the left eye is probably still a bit off. I think the inner corner is a bit too wide, or perhaps it needs a bit more shade in the corner. Did you use a reference picture to draw this portrait? If you did you could just measure the size and placement of the eyes in order to study the face in more detail.

[Concept - Mad:]

It's very difficult to choose just one for all the categories. Such great backgrounds.

Concept - Mad: I thought it was the most original approach to the theme.
Artistic execution - Misj': Wonderful what you can do with just black and white.
Playability - Greenbeams: Love all the details, so many places to explore.

Honorable mentions - Loominous: Wow, just wow. Such great lighting. Love the atmosphere you created in that background.

Thanks for the tip Mathias. I'm not sure yet how serious I am about animation, but I can use all the help I can get. So I'm definitely going to check out the animators survival kit.

I've been making digital paintings for a few years now, but I've never made any animations before. So that's a big obstacle that I have to overcome in creating my first game.
Since there must be more novices around this forum that have this same problem I wanted to share this great tutorial I found about animating a walk cycle.

Oh, I'm not offended in anyway Mandle. Like I said earlier I'm very new to this forum. So when I saw this comp I wasn't sure what the rules where, which is why I added that my background wasn't created for this competition in my original post. I'll admit that I was pleased that WRK would accept my entry but you raised a good point. So that's why I withdrew my entry, even though it makes me a bit sad. But like you said, there will be other future comps to enter with original work.

Thank you for the compliment on my background I'm really glad to hear that you like it.

By the way if there are people that like background competitions as much as I do. I can recommend the Puzzle Pirates background competitionpuzzle pirates background competition. It has a bit more rules regarding style but if you win it will be used in the game.

Well I wouldn't want that to happen. So I guess I'll withdraw my entry.

Thank you for bending the rules a bit WRK. I'm very new to the forum so I wasn't sure what the rules are. I never stopped to think about the blitz part

I'm not sure what makes a background playable but I adjusted the size to a standard AGS size. This one was made a while ago not with this competition in mind. Thought I would give it a try anyway because it just suits the theme so well.