New picture/possible project

So I made another story-less picture of a monster I like, though there's a humen too. I've been drawing some mildly more realistic critters based off the anatomy of some animals lately and thinking of how humans could befriend/work with them, so I guess this means I have a possible picture project underway.

BONUS TIME: Experimental sketches of two pictures I'd like to make, both featuring a traveling merchant and his treasure-seeking bird:

First actual picture in a long time

I worked pretty hard on this and kinda like it, but I still can't help but feel that something's wrong with it and it's still incomplete, especially on the more distant part with the tree.

Also this is for my other current story idea. Which I have not posted anything for on here yet. Muh.