I must say that I prefer the original without second thoughts. I'm not sure if I can explain exactly why, but I guess that I don't like mix of painting+realistic effects (like the blur); the color palette in the original has such strong impact and the rough strokes help a lot in focusing should be the center of atraction (strokes are also beautiful in that they give a sense of real painting).



Please don't get me wrong, I don't mean you learned backwards; just trying to say that sometimes the simplest way of doing something might end up in better results than the complex (or more techincally advanced one) way.



I was actually going to post in the original that I liked it so much I'm going to print it and hang it on my wall (next to a few other amazing elves illustrations)