Happy B'day Axe-man

This was a birthday present I quickly sketched for a friend. There is a story to this.
So, my friend is an admin of the group Otakus Anonymous on Facebook. Its a group to discuss anime, manga and everything Japanese and fun. Now, we refer to him as the Axe-man because he silently "axes" members whenever the group's members reach 250. He doesn't axe people randomly. If someone has not been posting for a long time, they are axed. But, they can join the group again. This is different from being banned. Anyway, also, incase you haven't guessed, thats a spongebob cake. And the character is from Gintama since my friend loves that show and more than loves that character.
So yeah, there. Had to rush with it as I was in office and I was supposed to be working on the project.

And some more BGs

Sorry about my absence. Cousins at home, deadlines looming, Red Dead Redemption are all eating away my time.
I had made this practice quite a while back. I like how the mountains came out. Still sticking to simple stuff and Im still not very confident with backgrounds. My friend gave a good advice. He said I should stick to the Hard Round brush of Photoshop and play around with its opacity and flow instead of using soft brushes which I was doing in some of my previous background practices. I do like the difference.
Would love to hear tips about how I should go about making backgrounds from you guys!

I really like the character design of Nightwing from Young Justice Season 2. Had to make my avatar wear a tee with his symbol on it!

Stalking

High time I uploaded more sketches yeah? Anyway, I love sketching canines and haven't really given felines much thought. Also, I want to start making stylized animals like so many artists around the globe do. Maybe I will do more such stylized versions of felines and give them more emotions/expressions.

So, here's the cheetah stalking its prey. I only wanted to show the cheetah as the focus. Also, I hate backgrounds. So there.

For those interested, here's what the cheetah looks like.

What's for Deserts

I really need to start working on creating better backgrounds. I have been practicing but I have a long way to go it seems...

Been practicing desert landscapes as they offer a pretty good subject. This picture was made without using any references.

I was googling some references when I came across pictures from "Monument Valley". Absolutely gorgeous. I have used reference for this image from here

Critiques and Comments needed. 

Some more practice

Yeah, can never grow tired of sketching horses. No sir.
Sorry for the absence..have a good reason for it. :D

Beyond

Tried to make another background. I wanted to make a desert, and I just kept painting whatever I felt like. I was supposed to make this simple, but I guess, I have a tendency of complicating paintings and then making them look like crap. Trying to get into the habit of working in different styles too.

I think I killed the piece by making it too yellow. I dont know. I am not too happy with it.

Blargh!