For those who have followed the strip for a while, you probably have the inkling that he’s not in to fishing and she’s not in to shopping. I tried to structure the joke so it worked with the characters but at the same time stood alone, so anyone who came in with stereotypical roles would still find it funny. I’m not sure how it worked, but this is what I have.
As far as the backgrounds go, I tried a new technique. I set the background flats, then took a textured brush at 50% opacity and applied colors on either side of the flats (about 15% saturation either way). The texture and the opacity kept a good bit of the background color showing through. Then, I took the airbrush tool and blended it all together. The airbrush tool is pretty cool, but it’s obvious it’s going to take me a while to get used to. The biggest issue I’d like to solve is that it will blend with colors in other layers (or white, if there are no active colors). For the background, I’d like to not have the edges bleed white. The technique will take some time to get used to, but I hope you enjoy it.