I haven't actually tried this out yet so yey, guinea piggie!

The first thing that struck me was how wonderfully rendered the guy on the right was. I really get the impression that he's a real person with the way you defined his features- especially in that cheek, face area where you work the lights and darks.

You get roughly the same sense with the lady but because of the stylization of her face, it doesn't quite come off as "photo-realistic" like the guy. Perhaps it has something to do with the shape and placement of her eye which feels a little off for this particular head angle.

NGL, I didn't actually "see" the hair blowing behind her when I first looked at this piece. It's a lovely effect but considering the overall "stillness" of the composition, it feels a little forced. I would suggest to perhaps lower the blowing strands so it's blowing toward the bottom left-- and reinforcing a pyramidal structure between them. This way, it doesn't feel like it's taking your gaze away from the frame.

The background isn't working for me but maybe it's because I don't know these characters, the show and I don't know the atmosphere you're trying to convey. The darker palette suggests melancholy, pensiveness (as shown on the man's thoughtful pose) but the geometric patterns and skewed perspective suggest a "circus-like" vibe, if that makes sense.

Overall though, I'm definitely envious of your painting skills as color is an incredible beast I have never had the proper instructions to tame. Keep up the good work and definitely looking forward to more of it!

I was going to do this on your LJ, but since I've yet to do an actual critique in this fancy new system, I'll try it here XD

Your painting/coloring has definitely improved in the past few years there's no denying that, I mean leaps and BOUNDS, but I think you might be letting yourself be too influenced by XXX's style. I know you admire XXX but no sooner I saw this I thought "Gosh the color palette/BG style looks just like XXX's work." I'd say maybe look at XXX's work and figure out WHY you like it, like what it is about the color palette that you like, and then try to interpret that in your own style (which is very different than XXX) instead of emulating the key elements as much.
That said, it doesn't look bad at all, I just feel like if you know XXX's work you'll see that first, your work second. (XXX has a really unique style afterall lol)

The man's face is the strongest part of the image to me, it looks like you spent the most time on him to me lol. I kind of wish you had kept that more realistic style on the girl as well because she looks far more cartoon-y than he does. Also the perspective on the girl's face is rather off. We're seeing a side view of her face but a front view of her eye and her eyebrow. I think maybe you were trying to go for a 3/4 view since we see a little of her 2nd nostril, but we'd see more of her eye/cheek on the left too if we did.

Anyway, I think your painting has lvl'd up during your schooling days immensely and I really look forward to seeing what else you produce now that you've got your free time back from the beast that is SCAD lol. I missed your art D:

I don't like rating objective things like "Vision" or "Originality" so I'm just going to give you gold stars across the board. Because who doesn't like gold stars?