The Winter Lord's Castle?

Our first project in Advanced Digital Illustration was due this morning, and I'm happy to report my painting was well-recieved (from what I could tell, anyway).  

There were several genres and prompts to choose from for this project such as:

Underwater sea lab

Shipwreck in a jungle

and Winter Lord's castle

We had to choose a prompt and create an exterior. 

I really like how the glaciers and the rope turned out, but I'm still feeling kind of ify on the "castle." At first it was going to have those shell shapes but with like large crystals protruding out of the middle of the structure, but then I thought that'd be too many icy/crystal type shapes hiding the focal point, so I just sort of started making up the middle architecture. Now, when I look at it I just think it's REALLLY Art Deco....which could be a cool take on a Winter Lord, but the rest of the image seems really fantasy and dated than the modern-esque castle. Maybe if I make the boat at the bottom some kind of retro-yacht? 

Anyway, I think I'm also planing on fine-tuning those ice sheets on the water, and adding a misty fog effect along the bottom to make it feel more "wintery" as well as giving the castle some snowy rooftop collections.....maybe.

Before Photoshopery.

After

The after piece was actually my instructor's doing, he used it a one of the examples on how to just push your painting a little more to really make it pop just by using things like Levels and Color Layers in Photoshop.