Here is where I am right now... and I decided to stop here and post my progress before I continue tomorrow...

When painting, I find it is a good idea to paint the most distant things first. That way, you dont have to do repainting around edges (say if I painstakingly painted the characters the way I liked them, and then had to dodge around them to paint the background. This way I can paint into the characters a little here and there and not sweat over it as I will be painting over them completely.

That, and the background sets the colors and lighting scheme that the characters reside in. Where they are lit from, what colors should be reflecting from their clothing/fur, etc, so they look more at home in their environment, rather than 'pasted in'.

Okay - so like I said earlier in this WIP, the idea of blurring a background to have it out of focus and receding into the background is a new concept for me, I've only attempted it once or twice before, and neither time was it with an interior setting with any architecture. I couldn't find any bar scenes that really appealed to me on Google, so I came up with this layout from scratch. I just thought of the idea of wooden counters, carpeted floors with a few stairs, and some hanging televisions providing some blue light, and some other incandescent lights creating some yellow light. Figures added in the background to make the scene seem populated, and though not extremely lively, at least comfortable and not desolate.

The paints I used are all Golden fluid acrylics - with a little Satin finish acrylic glazing liquid that I use as a retardant - and I also use water to further thin the mixture, creating a watercolor-like consistency. I started by painting in light watercolorish washes of my desired colors in the areas I'd blocked out in my sketch... and slowly layered and darkened each shape, also adding a 'halo' or a thinned out version of that color around the shape to blur it into the next shape. The further back into the piece, the more blurred the shapes, and the more rounded the blurs are. Nearer to the characters, the lines are merely softened.

But I kindof just built the background as I went, adjusting things as I went, by layering.

To get a good blur in some places, I put a little paint on my brush, and then dried the brush on a piece of paper towel, and then applied the dry paint to the area to get a subtle mark. Sometimes I used my fingertips to smudge applied paint... I don't really know what I'm doing, but I know how I want it to look, and I keep working it until I get there. And then I try to remember how I got there. Thats a big part of the fun of it for me, is that its not just practiced technique, its playing, and experimentation.
I think I use a different technique for each painting I do.

I'm not sure what the next step here is going to be. I'm either going to paint the pool table next, or the characters. Typically I leave the characters for last, so that I get the reflected colors proper, so that is probably what I will do.

Also I should note that from the very first sketch I had my signature location blocked in. Thats become pretty important to me. I remember back when I wrote longhand signatures, and I added them at the end, after I'd worked hours on a piece, and I wanted to hide them, because I felt like I was damaging the work I'd just done, by scribbling my name on it. My block signature not only looks more artistic (in my opinion) than the longhand version, but I can work it into a drawing from the beginning, and not worry about it messing up my composition at the end.

Okay, more to come later, as I will have to paint it first =D. I hope this is enjoyable