There's a gap of about 8 months between these two paintings. Each piece took roughly 4 hours, though I think I worked faster overall with the piece on the right. The character is @MattFDraws' Lunae.
This year I worked on lighting, composition, and communication of concepts/themes. I tried to improve the sense that the characters and places I draw are "real" - that they have thoughts, a history to them, you can go to the places and meet the people there. I also experimented with different workflows, trying to make my digital workflow closer to my traditional one (in the case of this drawing, watercolor and oil paint).
It's typically difficult for me to tell whether I'm actually improving just by looking at my art since I draw such a wide variety of things under different restrictions, but I think it's pretty clear here that the aspects I've been working on have improved. I'm looking forward to drawing more next year!