The pose was supposed to be more relaxed, and less 'warriorish'. The background was an experiment all unto itself, the pool, the building, and the asphalt were all 'i dunno what im doing' kind of thingies.

You can call them 'faux vector' fills: basically, I used the marquee and polygonal lasso tool to do most of the backdrop colors, then slowly filled them in with details.

The grid view was very useful here as well, keeping them lines in check. I'm just so used to less euclidean sort of art, more organic and unpredictable. Guess this will be another challenge I need to overcome... anyhoo, hope you guys like it. :)