I admit to also doing a double take when I saw it as a thumb. You did a FANTASTIC job with the hard vs soft shadows. I'm guessing this is not done by mouse? The background fades perfectly and the foreground and various textures come through wonderfully. I think you did very well with the shading on the underbelly and you paid attention to how things blur as they get farther away, and the feel overall is that of a glossy, high quality animal photo XD my only suggestion would be, as we've been dealing with (more like struggling with X_X ) is to next try and tackle the bright vs duller aspects, where things farther away, like the far underbelly of the bird would be duller than the closest part of it to use, which should be the brighest (more intense, not necessarily lightest) of that blue. great job man