Thanks chilombiano; I hadn’t thought of a smoking character but I think that’s a great idea - the chimp is a prime candidate to have a cigarette, maybe even a pipe. Also considering putting in some vapour trails in the sky from smaller unseen ships. Hell why not, more is more.
CartoonBox; Thanks I’m painting every spare moment I get!
Hey man,
The colors are vibrant and work really well with all the little details you put into the scene. I think chilombiano has a point. A high-class dinner has to have a smoker or two…and maybe you can give a monocle to the ape or the monkey. As for the seats i think a bit of texture to suggest there’s foam or something comfortable to sit on would be nice cuz if u leave it like that they would look like extended toilet seats…not too high on the comfort scale imo. just my 2 cents.
Good luck though i doubt you’ll need it
theblahblah: Thanks for the good advice - got to fix those loo seats asap. They have been problematic from the start. Dont know where they came from or what I was smoking…
Rubira: Thanks, got to push on and finish this thing now!
I have decided to go with a charcoal grey colour scheme with red, orange, yellow and purple additions - quite vibrant - with fluorescent blue bounce light?Hope it works out…
Trying to maintain some kind of grip over the colour without the painting turning into a fruit salad…
Chairs / Extended loo seats are now furry… not sure that works yet. Not sure anything works yet… heh heh.
Working into the table detail; trying to unify the colours and wishing I had been a little less grand in scope!
pkneeshaw - thanks a lot, next time I enter I think I will do something loose, sketchy and painterly with no detail except for a couple of white blobs. And half the painting will be a dark silhoutte! 
Painted in the foreground chairs - lots of blue bounce light to get the detail in. Beginning to paint in the left hand side background, not sure how to fix the wall though…
It’s realy coming alive now. Brilliant work Can’t wait to see more.
Keep up the great work! This is going to be awesome.:applause:
Cheers,
Dimitrij.
This is looking nice so far. You have really fanciful, interesting aliens in a greeat setting. And you have a whole lot of bright vibrant colors, everywhere. There’s little break anywhere from the colors, and every single part of the canvas is equally intense, all fighting for the eye’s attention. It makes it hard for the eyes to rest anywhere, or help from being pulled somewhere else. One thing that could help your composition is to vary the values and saturation levels more: The table is obviously the main focal point so what if it were the most intensely colored thing on the page and other less important areas (like the sky) were less saturated and trying to grab your attention less? Or if you focused on having more warm hues in the foreground and cooler colors in the background? Or vise versa, to provide some warm/cool contrast between front and back?
Anyhow, just some ideas. Great work so far, and terrific details! 
I like the gestures of each creature.
The banquet seems very tasty, who is the cheff?
good luck,
I dig the strong colours so far… I’d play though a bit with the contrast to loose the background a bit so it doesn’t stick to the main subject. It’s coming along very nicely!
Trying to get away from the fruit salad look by desaturating some of the less important areas.
