As you like it ... digital painting or 3D render???

I put it to you -- what's your preference? Pure digital painting, or 3D render, or a composite of both? I have to admit that lately I've begun to drift towards a preference for painting. I think ... I think ... I might have seen too much AI and CG in the last couple of years, and I'm starting to value the gift of an actual living, breathing, flesh and blood human being...

This one is a composite of two images, plus the sky from a third, plus Photoshop brushes, plus a lot, and I mean a LOT of painting. You see that hair? Painted. 

But I will admit to doing the sky the sneaky way:

Yeeees, that's a photo I took at the end of the driveway, almost in the street, about six years ago. And you can actually recognize it in the finished painting here:

The final version is the result of re-re-reapplied filters and a couple of blend modes, which turn a photo into a painting. Photoshop jiggery-pokery. From time to time, I might have to cut corner and save a bit of work ... a) I don't have much time to invest in painting these days; b) I have problems with my hands and spine. I actually don't see anything wrong with using my own resources ... it's my photo, when all's said and done! And the background is a reworking of a landscape I did last year --

-- you can also recognise that in the finished work. Soooo ... digital painting or rendering? 

Now, the CG work goes back to a render from about 2021: Tomas and the dragon called Trouble, who is now mostly grown up and desperately needs to be home, on the other side of those mountains, where the big dragons live (also elves and trolls -- delicious, isn't it?). I'd very much like to produce an illustrated story, and I've been asking myself in recent months which would look best -- a CG rendered world, or a world that is painted? For comparison --

I actually find the painting more compelling! If you have an opinion, you can find me on Facebook, and I wouldn't mind having some feedback on this.