OK. A little art theory. Unless you're doing abstract art, you always want to build your image around a central point of interest. You usually use shading or color contrast to draw the viewer's eye directly to that point, and then use lines or zones of contrast to lead the viewer away from and back to that focal point. Strong horizontal lines should be balanced by strong vertical lines. You should be able to break an image into areas of similar values or colors. Every art teacher I've ever read or talked to says the same thing, "If you squint, you can reduce an image down to it's basic shapes. That's when you can see any flaws in the work." I get the same effect just by taking off my glasses :-) This is all art composition 101. I find that most everything I learned in painting as far as composition applies in 3D rendering as well. Let's squint at your first picture. I come up with 4 basic areas: top, middle bottom and left side. There is strong horizontal to it that would be balanced by the tree reflections in the background...except they're too weak through lack of contrast. Your focal point is the duck with the big head, as it is the most prominent of the ducks with the most contrast to the background. Unfortunately, The vertical limb...the only strong vertical in the picture...has even greater contrast than the lead duck and is in very close proximity to it. This tends to weaken the duck as the focal point and confuse the viewer's eye. Also, the picture is doing something you should try to avoid. A rule of thumb in painting says you never put a horizontal line right across the middle of the picture. Unfortunately, that's exactly what your log is doing. Here's what I would do. Angle the log so it reaches for the left corner. This will help give the viewer a way into and out of the picture and will give you some foreground material. It will also move the end of the log further into the middle. That's where the lead duck should be placed. Give him a little separation from the other ducks. The hump of the log will naturally set him higher, making him more prominent. Here's how you handle the tree reflections. Move the trees so there are none reflecting behind the lead duck. Since the duck is a dark figure, the reflection of the sky on the water behind the lead duck will increase the contrast. Increase the height of the remaining trees and thicken them. This should help somewhat in gaining contrast between the reflected trees and the reflected sky. Continued next post...

I'd rather stay in my lane than lay in my stain!