Rock Characters?

Some quick earth-based characters for a potential children's story-

Coal on the left and crystal/ice on the right.

Who can resist cute fluffy things? Everyday Cute has adorable comics and sometimes cool contests with prizes (like a wacom tablet!) I'm sad I missed that one D: You can find them here- Everyday Cute

Dungeon Delve Progress

To give a little background of the challenge first: the basic idea is that a D&D character is lost in a dungeon with seemingly no escape and is in dangerous/enemy territory. Plus, they've been lost in the dungeon for so long that they're in pretty bad shape (cut, bruised, exhausted, etc.). The illustration has to both come across as threatening and hopeless ideally.

So, I still haven't decided which sketch I'll be working from. I'm stuck between #2 and 3. I'm not sure if either drawing is great for the challenge or gets those earlier stated themes across. I did some color thumbnails to see if I could figure out any more ideas or make some progress. Here are the color thumbnails for sketch #2:

And here are the thumbnails for #3:

Original sketches are here also: Original Ideas

#3 doesn't really change that much and has less variety, which is why I'm starting to like #2 more now. Sketch #2 has a wary character trying to escape some massive, subterranean area only to discover a new room filled with tell-tale blood stains all over the floor. #3 has a close up of the character in horrible shape attempting to desperately make their way across a tiny ledge with a huge pit below them. Now to figure out which works better :/

Also, I got some great reference for these color tests from some Magic the Gathering art found here:

MtG Ravnica Swamp

Ravnica Swamp 2

Anthony Waters MtG art

On a side note

So, I'm a sucker for super-cute/kawaii things:

and absolutely disgusting, biological things (like creatures):

What's up with that? Anyway, they're not the coolest nasty monsters I've seen but they're still neat. Oh Resident Evil 4, you scare the crap out of me every time I play  try to play you.

Currently working on this challenge over at ArtOrder- Dungeon Delve Challenge

The prize for winning is a published piece for D&D, how awesome is that?  I've got some idea sketches for now:

Artblogs- Where it's at

Here are a few of my favorite artblogs chock-full of awesome art, inspiration, and advice. A bunch are MtG artists cause I'm biased :P I only hope that one day I can be as awesome as these guys:

Art Order (Game Art Director)
Christopher Burdett
Doug Williams
Noxizmad
 Matthew Barrett Concept Art
Jesper Ejsing
Rebecca Guay
Paul Felix
Dave Dorman
Daarken
Daniel Simon
Mac Smith
Loish
http://mdvaillancourt.wordpress.com/

Oh, and some other handy resources:
Creatures!
Character Design
Creative Uncut, Videogame Art Archive
ffffound, fun stuff abound

Of course there is always conceptart.org, CGSociety, Massive Black, and other illustration masters (Donato Giancola) to look at too

A new work in progress, slightly scary butcher guy image-

Maybe he'll eventually graduate from "in progress" to some sort of finished work. Perhaps with a background of another slightly scary butcher guy, eh?- 

The guy in the back will be extra creepy too. I sort of image this as a scene out of Courage the Cowardly Dog :)