My thoughts on this version are mixed. On the one hand, it definitely does the intended job of drawing attention more towards the main characters than the background characters, and although you mention the brush strokes looking obvious, I think it kind of gives it a neat "sketchy shadow" effect, in a way.

On the other hand, it seems like it's messed up some of the colours, most notably Kyo's speech bubble borders and the windows on the left side of the building. And if the sketchy shadow thing isn't what you were aiming for, then that's definitely a problem too.

It's certainly an interesting idea for an effect, and it's worth looking into practicing a few times. To protect the speech bubbles at least, maybe you could trace out their shapes onto a spare piece of paper or card, cut them out and secure them on the page somehow? That's just my thought on the matter.

yeah, i gotta figure something out because the paint just did not do what i expected. i tried protecting areas i wanted salvaged with wax, hoping i'd get a nice clean border effect, but no dice. speech bubbles were one of the things i got wax on and obviously it didn't help much.

yeah it's a conundrum aaa

I think the problem with a lot of your recent pages is the tonal value. You really need to start looking at your sense of value more objectively.

For instance, the eye has trouble going straight to Kyo and Grey on the bottom because of the white in the sky. The eye will ALWAYS go to the lightest area in a picture, and on this page that color is white. The speech bubbles could help direct the eye, as well as make Grey's shirt the brightest thing on the page. Also, a good thing to also do would be to squint a little at what colors you are using and where you are placing them. The value on the tree is almost identical to the value on Kyo's pants, the Chuian's ears in the front of them is the same shade as the shading on Kyo's bag, the color of Kyo's shirt shows up in the background as well as other colors, ect. The values being all over the place makes crowd scenes very confusing, and makes problems with value very apparent.

One of my professors gave me a solution to this problem by explaining it like this. Say a person is standing there, wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans. The lighest portion of the face is going to be the white of the eyes. The lightest value is going to be on the t-shirt, and the same value of shadow on the t-shirt is going to be nowhere near the same value as the value on a pair or jeans or on skin. At the moment on Kyo, the shading on his fur, shirt and pants are all the same value. You need to pick and choose what is the darkest and what is the lightest on his person and his clothing.

I would also personally suggest tinting EVERYTHING other than Grey and Kyo, the focus of the piece. You want to do what is called "pushing and pulling" value, pushing back the background and pushing forward the foreground. You can do this by looking at a color wheel. Kyo is yellow and Grey's color scheme is... gray, haha, so you want to work with colors opposite of them to push them out... namely purple and orange and blues. You can still keep the grungy, graysh colors of the city, but tinting the background with one of these colors would help a lot.

As a further tip, a common trick in the art world is to shade with the opposite color on the color wheel as well. Light purples look great on yellow, light reds on green, blue is great for shading brown, ect. It would help your pages from looking less gray.

Hope this helps!

Oops, I forgot. I also recommend you check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336975540&sr=8-1

It's a good start to understanding light, color and value and how to use them.

all of my thanks <3

thanks for the help, seriously!!

i always forget which the eye goes to first -black or white. since i've got scifi nerd eyes i automatically gravitate to black, i guess...? i always try to remember the calvin & hobbes strip where waterson talked about which it was, but it gets mixed up in my head. thank you for clearing it up. i need to make a mental note of this. of course now that i've already decided chuian architecture is predominantly white that doesn't help me a ton...

seriously, this was a big help. i've never gone to art school or anything, and most of the time when i request crit people just clam up. i'm not sure how much i can do about the conturian streets at this point (having already decided the sky green and the streets mostly white, i can't just spontaniously change them this late in the game) but moving the guys indoors for a few scenes now i can def. impliment some of these tips. fortunately there's that big purpleishblue tree in the bar, that should help kyo. i'm always afraid of busting out orange because i feel like his yellow fur would become lost in it.

many thanks, dude!

No problem, I'm happy to help! : )

Making the building appear white or the sky green is no problem if you get the values correct! I was told all through school that value is the most important thing in a painting, and that color comes second. Color can just be a big help in understanding it. All you have to do is remember that the building, even though a tint of purple/blue/orange/whichever is going to be the lightest feature in the background. If you pull the figures forward (although not surpassing Kyo and Grey), you can really give the allusion that the building is still white. Just remember that our eyes are tricksters when it comes to color. Something what appears one color may very well be another.

How I personally learned a lot of color tricks is putting photographs in photoshop and testing certain areas with the eyedropper tool. You can discover what colors really are, and what the eye tells us that they are.

Also, if you are afraid of the orange/purple/blue/whatever being too bright and drowning Kyo out, using the color wheel helps here too hehe. (the thing is mighty useful) If you have say... a really bright orange, like a cadmium orange or something, you can make the orange much more subtle by mixing with it a little bit of blue or purple. That way you still have the tonal advantage of orange for your purposes, but it isn't as freakishly orange or bright. This will work with any color that seems way too bright and needs some toning down.

do you mind if when i get my inks done for next week i shoot you a note with some thoughts on what i plan to do, to hear your thoughts on how to improve?

Sure thing, dude. I'd be happy to help.

Since you were so receptive with the crit, I thought I'd illustrate what I meant a little. I didn't spend too much time on it, but I ran your page in through photoshop and touched up on the value a little. More could always be done, but it's a basic idea. : ) http://oi49.tinypic.com/n19v92.jpg

yeesh no way would i use that much purple. i have a thing about not putting green and purple together, same with trying to avoid yellow and red right next to eachother. some colour combinations just make my hair stand on end and not in a good way.

however the blue used to shade kyo's shirt, i like that. i dunno, i think the purple is a colour i just tend to avoid unless i'm using it with blues or more neutral colours like browns.

Gah, I know I must be annoying by this point. But as soon as I posted that, I realized I forgot to do a few things. http://oi45.tinypic.com/2q3rm69.jpg

I will leave you alone now. :P

that's a bit easier to see some of the things you're talking about, okay. hmm. still though, so much purple. you can't even tell the sky is green or the foliage in the distance is blue, i dunno. i feel like it's too intense? probably just my intense dislike for purple, really.

I actually think it works well!

thanka shirou!

Ha, with me it would probably be "that better be a coffee shop."

WORD.
'oh please let this town have coffee.'