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Omit your line layer or paint over the lines. Leaving a hint of them there might work, if they look like they were traditionally painted on (usually much easier to do if they're thick and globby).

Try thinking of your tool as a paintbrush. Have you ever painted traditionally? What with?
My experimentation is limited, so I haven't much messed with custom made brushes that attempt to emulate traditional ones. For technique itself, using a higher opacity and a hard brush tends to lead an image to look like it's been done with acrylic... it kind of feels more like using acrylic too, ultimately thicker and not as smooth as oil...

In this picture, the chain in the midground looks very digital, due to the completely solid completely opaque round brush used. The edges are just too crisp. The one in the background has a couple areas like that too.
The one in the front is pretty good but I don't have much of an eye for having blurry acrylic... hyper-tom's really good at it though, but he uses an airbrush. http://hyper-tom.deviantart.com/art/Deja-Vu-89307604

For the character, maybe work on blocking in the area instead of relying on lines to convey the edges. Paint the form from the silhouette.
Always use the biggest possible brush for rendering, and add the sweet details in last, including any useage of black or white.

Limited brush experimentation:
http://fchan.us/artist/res/1110.html
The deer guy at 1125, pretty much all experimentation, I used textured brushes. Some parts of the trombone really stand out. I don't think I went under %50 opacity at all.

Uhhh.
This isn't really organized, for which I apologize. Hopefully something makes sense and/or works, but if it's all nonsensical I can try to clarify.

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>>562

Hello there Deatzh, thank you very much for the input, it's pretty spot on I think.

To answer your question, I have painted traditionally, with just about everything you could think of (watercolor, oil, acrylic, gouache, and some temper paints.) For my character here I didn't really use a round brush, I used a chalk brush set to become more opaque with higher pen pressure. One of the things I have been trying to get a grasp on in my recent work is having that subtle layer of texture there to help it not look digital, at the same time I am not really looking to emulate real world painting...for that I would use painter XI or something.

Your deer painting does look very much like acrylic paint thanks to all the hard edges,

Also, one of my weaknesses in illustration for a long time has been relying on line a little too much :3 So, you are right... I did paint over them to try and make them blend a bit better though, none of the line work is black.

Well, thanks again, I hope some of what I said makes sense :S. If you thin of anything else let me know!

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>>536

forgot one thing... here is the same piece without any linework.

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>>536 Wow. Lookin nice sir. I agree with Deatzh about the middle chain looking digital, but as for the the looseness of the piece I enjoy it. It's nice to see those thin, graceful contours holding together the larger blocks of color.

The overall layout of the piece is nice as well- nothing is centered and it seems to be following the rule of thirds. Apart from tightening up that middle chain, my only other suggestion would be to alter the color of the most distant chain. As objects recede from the viewer, they become more similar (in both value and color) to the background. The value seems on, but I think the chain should be more greenish. The chain in the bottom right becomes an eye sore because it's so gray.

Overall though, I think it's a very nice piece. Keep it up.

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>>575

wow GREAT observation on the atmospheric perspective there, I had never noticed that! Thank you for your words! :3