boggled by the lack of comments on this

This is wonderful. :) I love how the colors work together - the character really stands out with the pastel colors. :) You might want to take this into a program and darken it slightly, you can see the strokes in the black on his costume and that somewhat detracts from how wonderful the coloring is otherwise. :)

The background just sends me into fits of ... mm.. I'd say 'jealousy', but that implies some degree of spite. :) So I think 'awe' is much closer. :)

I highly dig those shoes. Man.

I think a good next step for you to take (with your BGs) would be to let light influence them. Like, in this picture, I don't get a sense of there being an "outside" to that window...since there's no light coming in from it, and light would really affect this pic...I could try and do a quick paintover, if you wanted (just send me a li'l copy of the pic).

my art: www.side7.com/art/daniwill