New illo, what's it lacking?

[Admbrns]

New here, hello everyone!

Here's a recent illo, wip. I feel like its lacking something, any thoughts? C&C very welcome

[Punk-A-Cat]

It seems a little flat value wise.. like, you have a highlight, and midtones, but no real darks and as such no depth to the image. I don't know where you need to push it to get the depth (I'm crap at values but starting to be able to see where they aren't /there/ if that makes sense?)
The hand to the right/ closest seems a little off too.. idk why though.
Really neat image/ concept!

[Admbrns]

Thanks! You were absolutely right. I'm a little gun-shy when it comes to making things dark, because of working with print a lot. I've worked toward your advice and gave a quick curves adjustment and some darker values in places.

I did kind of fudge that hand to the right. An actual hand in that kind of position didn't look too aesthetic to me, I'll have to find a compromise. Here's an update, values could still use pushing in some other areas

[Punk-A-Cat]

That's better, it has more depth now, I think you could still push it further though - I 100% get that shy of making things too dark, that's my biggest problem with all my pictures - made even worse because I mostly watercolour, and they dry lighter!