looking to improve

[brainstorm]

I'm an amateur looking to improve my skills and hopefully one day become professional...
These images are from a personal project... a kids' book I'm doing for my own kids, as well as my nephews and nieces.
I know the lighting is off in the pics, but before I try and change it some more, I thought I'd look for specific suggestions so my approach was less trial and error. Also, I know my compositional grasp is rather weak, and so on and so forth... so, I welcome whatever comments/criticisms anyone may have.

Thanks,
Brian

http://img14.photobucket.com/albums/v43/brainstorm/04colorflat2_copy.jpg
http://img14.photobucket.com/albums/v43/brainstorm/02colorflat_copy.jpg

[Fozzybar]

hehe, i like it.

Watch the typo there. Choose a different font. One you can read well. The typo's overlay on the black background is a good idea in design, but in this case it's more disturbing then helping...

[brainstorm]

Fozzybar,

Thanks for the comments... any fonts you could suggest that will read better?
Yeah, I wondered if the placement of the text might be a bit unsettling.

[Fozzybar]

I don't have one in mind, but just try. The lines should be thicker. And i am not sure if a serif-font is the right here, though it's always better to have one in a long text.

You could look on the free fonts-pages also...

[brainstorm]

cool...

thanks for the advice, Fozzybar!:)