Dude(ette), congrats. Doing black is hard on digital. Notes on using SAI + Photoshop, plz,

Let's see. The way I did this was that I had the linework on top and set to multiply in photoshop. Then I had a layer for the basic background, then another for the trees, and another for the flat coloring of the characters, and another for shadows on the character, another for hilights, and on top of that was my linework, and over that was another layer for leaves, and another on top of that was for the shiny sunlight effects. He had a blue base color that I just built up over and over and over with shading and hilights. When I brought it into Sai I used the water tool to blend the shadows and hilights on the character a bit better and make them look a little more smooth.

I'm still flailing in the dark a great deal, but finally figuring out that I could stick my linework on a layer set to multiply and then have a series of transparent layers to slop color on made the whole thing much easier.

That is awesome. Nice job. :)

Damn! That looks amazing, the shading looks awesome, I am at a loss for words.

It was several days of study and work, but I wanted it to be the absolute best I could possibly make it. My hand was a twisted gnarled claw for a bit after though.

<3 Simply put <3
I love how this came out!
Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much gen ^_^

This is what I've been doing all the digiart practice for. I wanted you to get something good, and I can safely say this is the best digital image I've ever done.

Check your mailbox ;)

This is absolutely AMAZING

Thank you. For all his patience and everything else I wanted him to get the best I could manage. :)

He is amazingly patient...he'd have to be to date me.

I love your art and I'm totally saving up for a commish of my own ^^