Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ah I love SAI it's awesome xD

Aaanyway - after adding the highlights and what not it should be more defined. Generally for fur I use around a 10.2 size of the pen. I generally work very large so this makes it looks really wispy and soft. With the tablets pressure it should be even easier. You set the min size to about 30 or 50 so you get that nice tapered edge as you release the pen.

I'd add a darker shade as well where the shadows fall just to give it more substance. And a little ways in from the edges of his back and face (once you've laid down all the shadows) add small highlight hairs to pick up a secondary light.

((work from the shadows to the highlights - add the very bright white highlights last on the front))

using the pen tool at such a small measure will give a very crisp line -sometimes too crisp. So on parts that I want to be softer I either blur at strategic points or go back with a light or dark color but giant pen size on low density. I don't generally use the aribrush or watercolor tools.... just the pen tool.

All in all - i'd go darker so he doesn't belnd in so deeply with the background - i think that's what's mainly making him look so undefined.

Cute kitty and I wish you lots of luck with SAI - like I said I'm in love with it and I've used Gimp, Opencanvas and Photoshop.

Thanks for the input, both of you.

I don't know if I have the heart to go back to this picture, but I'm definitely going to apply everything you've told me to my next one. This guy's just too small for even the small brushes to really make a detailed impact.

Again, thank you. I'll be sure to stick my next image up in here too for your skilled eyes to work over. Though don't be surprised if my next thread is me bitching about my new tablet and not coloring related. lol