Animated Paintover

An artist made this digital painting, then asked me for a paintover. Here's a before/after gif of the result:

I did this in Photoshop, then animated it as a gif comparing it with his original. It's a trick that makes it easier to see the changes, and often communicates more clearly than a whole essay.

I hope you can tell which one is his, and which one mine, but just in case I'll explain: the more purply one is mine. :)
IMO the colors of the original are unrealistic and all over the place, going from bright lemon yellow to blood red to dirty brown and even grey... actually quite a disgusting mix of colors if you ask me. Since this is a fairly common problem with beginners, I thought this was a good example to show.

So I went for the type of sunset I prefer, the mellow dusty pastel type, not too much strong garish colors. This also helps the main subject of the painting stand out better.

Although I did mellow the strong green on the cabin as well, but it still stands out due to the fire coming out the back.
I also tried to make the smoke more realistic. The light falling on the spherical ballon is also off, and I tried to correct it.

I'm not sure if he liked it as you can never tell for sure online, but he said it helped and thanked me. :)

Some of my (other) paintovers:
https://steemit.com/art/@stahlberg/animated-paintover
https://steemit.com/art/@stahlberg/2ht6cw-animated-paintover
https://steemit.com/nsfw/@stahlberg/3jyiuy-animated-paintover
https://steemit.com/art/@stahlberg/2ughc8-animated-paintover
https://steemit.com/art/@stahlberg/2oxkdq-animated-paintover