Simplification and it's grand rewards

Greetings all! Guess what? I won the ImagineFX challenge again this month! :D Now I think it's time to step aside and give it a rest. I might still do the challenges but I won't post them in the finals. Here's the final winning image (but you can give me some crit over at conceptart.org).

It's nicely rendered, but I'd really like to loosen up my style. I think if I had a more defined style I would be a lot further along in getting into the industry. As it is, I border on being forgettable. Looking around some art sites, I've been greatly inspired by works like this:


FAFN forest defenders by ~Pervandr on deviantART
And this guy who blows me away- http://www.ruanjia.com/

I love how each stroke defines the form and yet doesn't over define it. It reminds me of the very powerful statement I read recently in a great art tutorial-
"The advantage art holds over photos is simplification. In a photo you'll get distracting details. When drawing, you can remove objects that aren't relevant to the scene. "

Each and every stroke should add something to the piece. If it's not needed, you shouldn't add it. That is a substantial thought. It really made me think. Hope it makes you think too. ;)

And here are a few quick sketches I've done in the past week trying to loosen up.

Ref- link

I still have a ways to go as you can see but I am trying.

During my studies this week I have discovered a way to replicate that really nice hard brush look I see in concept art. My hard round brush just wasn't doing the trick. So played around and discovered that the "oil heavy flow dry edges" brush set with low opacity and low flow gets close to the effect. Anyone else have a different technique? I used it for the tornado speed paint above. Here are my settings:

And as stated I have joined some more art communities. Leave me a message and we can hook up:

http://lithriel.cghub.com/
http://conceptart.org/forums/member.php?u=314321
http://lithriel.cgsociety.org/