Auh, He so cute ;A; purple hair and eye patches are amazing <3

What have I told you? See! This BG is good!!!
The BG is detailed, but doesn't take away from the subject,
it complements the subject and isn't that what they do?
Plus, that thick black border you put around him really makes him stand out from the BG.
Good choice using halftone and crap I love his hair. @3@

About the title in the picture, don't get me wrong, it looks great.
But have you tried putting it in other places? Perhaps trying out different colors just to see?
O, and if you put a peroid in front of the Z it would look spiff~ |D
Another trick or something to try, is well, since the border is also black why not make the letters connect to it?
So it looks like it's comming out from the black.

I think the reason you think your sketches look better is because there isn't a lot of shading in the subject.
I see that you have the basic, darks n' lights all laid out, but clothing is a bit more tricker then that.
They have folds n' creases! Lots! The main place that's missing them is the torso area, in fact, I think that's where most of the folds are. =3=
another thing, many folds are best not to ink, or put lineart on. Let the color determine somethings.

And don't b afraid to clean up your lineart a bit, even if it's directly from a pencil sketch. :d
Heh, in my most recent picture, I actically ereased quite a bit of lineart. *3*
Try darkening it too, since in this pic you got the thick black boarder.

Ok, that's all I got. I don't think you want to read any more of my blabber. xD;;;

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*BloodScale is da

I want his hoodie<33!!