The Beginnings Of A Portfolio

One of my goals for 2014 is to continue creating pieces for my online illustration portfolio.  Late last year, I started working on this piece which was an assignment from an online class and I've been working on it off and on since then.  The assignment was to illustrate the story of a character named Mrs Pepper who having a party in the woods with her friends, as well as another character named Simon who, unfortunately, was not invited (I know, poor guy!).

My original version of this story is the bottom illustration, where Simon is a skunk.  When I decided to paint the piece in watercolor (the first colorings were digital), I decided to change things up and make Simon a gnome 'cause why not?  Here are both finished illustrations ...

So what do you think?  Do you prefer the Gnome or Skunk?  I feel like the gnome version of Simon makes the scene more colorful, plus a little more interesting considering he's the only non-animal in the scene.  I do have to share that the original skunk version was the more preferred with my peeps over here but I'd love to hear your opinions.

So what do you think ... skunk or gnome?