Thanks, I was quite pleased with it myself. The designs on the sides were actually put in because I messed up the perspective stretching off into the distance, and decided to just omit them by framing it in something I could handle better (also it allowed me to draw some more characters without them being off in the distance). The type, therefore, was come up with on the spot (originally the drawing was just Savant looking through books in the library, smiling), and the angel and devil were put in once the left side was done because I figured the piece needed something similar on that side.

Overall, I enjoyed drawing the frame much more than anything else (although I strangely liked drawing the books too).

Hand lettering of that style is something I've done a fair amount of earlier, especially in school, but now that I'm a 'pro' designer I've made the serious mistake of thinking nothing looks good unless it's done on a computer (and yes, at one point I even toyed with the idea of erasing the type and putting in computer fonts... eep!). It's taken a seemingly throwaway sketch like this to remind me of that fact.

Hmm, this construction lines thing does work for this kind of sketch, although I've omitted a lot of them on the characters themselves. I agree about the type though... they'd look a lot looser and emptier without the lines.

Thanks so much for the encouragement! I should do some more of these on a regular basis because they're a hell of a lot of fun.