Before I start I would like to say I love to see entries but for some reason I cannot quite succumb to letting a fantastic piece that an artists has worked on for countless hours win or those done long ago win before something freshly inspired by this contest. I could be wrong and it can be hard to judge how long something has been around especially if I haven't seen it on the forum before. I usually take sometime to look at everyones gallery threads, I always appreciate any art posted on the forums. Anyways I am sorry I am a bit biased on this factor of a drawing, it just doesn't seem fair in my opinion to not consider something that has been done in less time. In fact I leave 3 weeks for people to come up and even improve their submissions which I would say is a decent amount of time for any of the current submissions to be done in. On to the judgments.
Winner
Weirdlike
Great dragon, but the foreground seems a bit sparse in details, you could try tossing in a couple rocks or maybe add some textures to give it some also try not to use too many filters the �emboss� effect doesn�t do justice on a 3d form. Also contrary to popular belief shadows are not always blurry, it really depends on the light source. A good method to do when trying to determine shadows and shading is drawing an arrow in the position and in the direction the light sources is emanating from.
Close Runner Up
Alexistigerspice
Knowing that this has been worked on for quite some time one would say it has an unfair advantage, maybe that makes it a disadvantage... I will say that it I a well done crow and that the details to the feathers are well done but there are a few minor things to peck at. First off in a few places the color shifts enough to a point where I notice it. On the top forward part of the head it shifts from a dark black with some blue tones to more of a red grey that composes most of the bird. The second part is the wing is substantially whiter than the other parts of the bird while also the feathers having less depth to the texture as the remainder of the body.
Other Entries
Mattemangel
*death to final fantasy*,
and I really don�t know much final fantasy to tell that this was a final fantasy character even before I read your comment lol they look mostly the same to me for some generic reason.
Anyways what can I say, it looks like a sketch though the head is a bit big and the body could use a neck, it could just be that his coat is covering it up. I just don�t like that hi has no shoulder/arm I just find it a weird way on sectioning off the body in the drawing.
Kegaumongo
I could see this on the cover of a fantasy novel, or perhaps it would make a decent website banner. It has a great feeling that doesn�t throw the classic boldness of fantasy art. Its subtle, more along the lines of enchanting. Though I would suggest not having the grey and black gradient, I feel the gradient just takes away from the sharp 2 dimensional quality of the foreground.
Nivlac724
You might want to find a bit more references to try and emulate. I can tell you were trying to draw a dragon but you didn�t know where to start. I don�t know if you wanted to draw line art first or attempted to paint in shading. Find out what kind of drawings yo like and then try to copy them either by looking up methods to draw things or even asking an artist you like. There are many places where you can talk to artists and some of them post time-lapse videos of their work . Once you have enough knowledge on something you wish to try draw it but refrain from trying to copy something directly rather make your own subjects with the desired style.
Miraidematro
It has a nice composition. There is a decent amount of depth to the perspective and a fair amount of narrative to the setting. One suggestion I would make is sing a bit higher resolution and filling out the smaller details sch as the chess board and its pieces. The mice look more detailed then the rest of the picture, slightly throwing off its constancy.
Stormwalker
Its a good start, I would suggest getting an image editing program to crop your photos. There is some cleaning up you can do. First off finish the coloring around the fish, maybe ink the fish and reduce the scribbling. I would think that if you hand drew the background/fish separately on a clean canvas then you could easily crop and superimpose them together in a photo editing program.
Thesakew
It has an interesting feeling compared to the others, somewhere between sad and scary. I would probably suggest reworking some of the colors you included in t the composition, I do not know if it is suppose to represent something like night breaking into dawn but the backgrounds contrast of colors just throws off the mood that the character depicts.