Corey's Commission... the process, Part 2

Color is coming along with Corey's commission. I've decided to take a new approach to working with this particular piece. I'm doing all the work on the characters first before working on the background. This is kind of the opposite of what I usually do, traditionally working back to front, but I was concerned with losing the pencil line sketches of the characters to the messy smearing about in the background. SO... the characters are done and 2 coats of fixative are drying over them. Once the paper is dry, I'll begin work on the background, and just push the charcoal up to the edges of the characters. I've left a dark outline around the characters, which will disappear as the background gets filled in. Here's a splash image of the four, and close-up photos of each: