I was trying to go for a Confrontation between good and evil here in a semi-subtle way, but I do not think that it is communicated very well at all. I have two thoughts on this.
and/or
I don’t know if it’s my monitor or what, but I’m having a hard time seeing the detail in yor picture because it’s very dark.
On first impressions I don’t really feel this is so much a confrontation as a meeting. Both the cat and the bird look a bit passive so maybe you could explore some ways to bring a bit more tension into the picture - perhaps exagerate the cat ready to strike with raised rump and lowered front, and make the bird as if it is poised ready for flight.
The picture seems to be about light and dark (and colour), so I don’t think you really need more detail in the textures. A bit more aggressive cropping may help to better focus on the action though (I know how easy it is to want to keep all the parts you have worked hard on but editing really can help).
You have a lovely design on the window, but another idea could be to introduce darker shades into the bottom part so these cast a pool of appropriately evil-coloured light on the cat while keeping the bright pool of light on the dove.
On observing the 7 cats in my house, it seems they’re up on their hind toes more when they’re stalking/getting ready to pounce, and the front legs are folded tighter underneath. Your cat couldn’t move quickly from the position it’s in. Also, the bird doesn’t look terribly concerned. Of course, if you intend for it to be somewhat relaxed, I’d say this is successful. But it seems to me there’d be more emotional tension if you caught the moment just before the action.
This isn’t dark on my monitor. I like the symbolic interaction between the image in the window and the moment you’ve captured with the cat and bird. Clever.
i think the cat’s head gets lost in the red light from the window. seeing the head, and the cat’s eyes in some way may contribute to the creation of a mood and a sense of danger. but i like the red…there’s gotta be a way to keep it and not lose things…
maybe rotating the POV to the right, so the cat and the window are opposite our view, with the bird between us and then raising it up off the ground a bit…right now it’s very horizontally composed, which doesn’t really help to add a sense of dynamism and makes it feel a little flat.
and i agree with the position the cat is in doesn’t feel right if it is about to pounce.
but great lighting effects and the textures are nice.
Skip
The biggest problem with this image is that the bird is immediately noticeable, yet it took me a while to spot the cat.
The bird also looks very non-confrontational. Perhaps putting it into a defensive/offensive pose would be more effective.
I also think the environment detracts a lot from the characters.
Actually I didn’t realise it was a cat until I read the comment posts. The colors of the lighting made it look almost like a duck’s plumage. Also I agree with the above, the window in the upper left is very distracting. I assume the stained glass design is supposed to be symbolic of the good/evil struggle, but again, the evil creature doesn’t read very clearly.
I disagree with Leigh, I think the fact that the cat is not immediatly noticible contributes a lot to it’s charecter, the evil subtle creepy feeling. This composition has a lot of potential in it, I hope you keep working on it!
Agree about the positioning of the cat however, raise the hindquarters up a bit and you’ll give it some extra action. And he needs some sort of eyes, I can’t pick out anything that should be an eye, even after saving the image and zooming it.
I’d have to say you need to pose your central characters better. They are both in very non-confrontational positions at the moment, which is obviously not what you are going for with the title of the piece.
I really think a great deal of the emotion will come from the dove. For some reason, there is something really emotive in the idea of something innocent and powerless standing up to defend/attack for the good of others. A bit like a mother duck attacking anything at all that comes between her and her ducklings, no matter what the danger to her.
The cat needs a lot more tension in its stance too. It almost looks like its napping 
I like the dove’s nonconfrontationalism, but the cat needs to be really menacing. Then it would be more like the dove is at peace, and knows that it doesn’t need to confront the cat, but the cat is more confrontational because it needs to be. I’m sorry if I’m not making sense, I can’t seem to express what I mean accurately.
depending on the artist’s intent, your comments make a lot of sense, sparky.
i’m looking forward to hearing slaughters’ response to the critiques so we can get some clarification.
Skip
there is too much detail distracting from the two characters that are telling the story, it’s nice work, but confuses the storyline. You need to bring the frame down to just be showing them and not all the other stuff (kinda sad, cause you’ll lose that stained glass) or put the cat and dove on a window sill or window seat or something. You really have to do something about the cat, at least light the head, maybe pose the cat upright, like his head just came into the light and his launching into a pounce, maybe. Flairing the doves wings might help it look more like it’s at least on the defensive, otherwise it’s just gonna get eaten (and I doubt that is the message you wanna convey… or maybe it is?) Innocence gets eaten MUHAHAHahaha would need to change the title though.
I agree with Leigh, the cat is very hard to notice because all my attention is drawn to the bird. The cat is to much in shadow he/she blends into the background a little too much. Maybe change camera angle, 3/4 view from the ground increasing the size of the bird and cat in the frame could help.
Well, I have an advice:
Maybe you can put a monster in front of the little bird. So that you can communicated your meaning very well.the biggest problem… you musta never read the church mouse books by Graham Oakley… 
nah, i think the bigggest problem for me is the overall composition. In terms of the actual focus, it takes up not a lot of space, and there’s a lot of other stuff that doesn’t receed into the background enough to let it speak.
Maybe if the Dove was further to the right, and in take off mode (taking off backwards, wings outstretched curved around), maybe the cat in mid pounce, it would of course have more dynamic, and more focus from the rest of what’s going on.
Another blank area (aside of from the right) is the area of floor in front of the action. this is evidently in a Church (or at least to me that’s evident) and you would expect to have some things in the forground, even if it’s only the very blurred side of a bench, or of a pillar, and maybe that’s more of the problem, that the depth has all been flattened out too much, it’s all midground, not much foreground or background.
anyhow, i like the premise of the image, so keep going on it.
For me it’s not so much confrontation more contradiction. For me the picture is laboring to tell a confrontation story. The contradiction is that for me the story is there without the cat. I didn’t see the cat until it was pointed out so I made up my own story with what I could see. The dove appears to have emerged from the window itself as you can see through the dove shape to the outside. A dove freeing itself from a stain glass prison could symbolise hope will always stay alive. I’m not convinced however that just removing the cat would make the picture work - I think maybe changing the camera angle would help.
If the cat has to stay I think it would be interesting if it looks like the cat has somehow scared the bird out of the window - but the feel of the picture would be very different I think.
The picture is nicely rendered but I think the story is in the bird freeing itself.
Bov
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